


Kid North

by e_n_silvermane



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Don't worry tho, Female Reader, Mother-Son Relationship, Other, child loki is a pain in the ass but reader has a good heart, kind of closer to tired mom-annoying lovable kid relationship, lighthearted w/ deeper tendencies, lowkey comedy, sarcastic reader, this was hilarious to write so I hope it reads well, tw: suicidal thoughts & ideation (chapter 5)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 106,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23632789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/e_n_silvermane/pseuds/e_n_silvermane
Summary: Reader is the type of person to always be getting themselves into things, like bean dip at parties, almost drowning at Coon Rapids Dam, seven different relationships that didn't work out, and other miscellaneous mishaps. But finding a lost kid in a park and saving him from a would-be murderer is probably the biggest thing she's gotten herself into yet.Not to mention that this kid thinks he's mythological-Norse royalty, and that no database on Earth has any sort of record that matches him.Follow this lovely mother-son pair as they bicker about what diner to stop at on their unexpectedly dangerous trip to Nunavut, Canada, where Prince Loki the Kid claims his parents will be - after all, he's from the north. What lurking shadow awaits them behind every street corner? Will Loki ever make it back home? What poor dents and scratches will Reader's '67 Chevy Impala have after this ordeal? All these questions and more shall be answered in this riveting story...Enjoy :)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This is the oddest cross between a serious fanfiction and a crackfic that I've ever written, but by god, I had so much fun writing it. I hope you get just as many laughs reading it! Love you lots, and have a wonderful day :)

I guess you could say I’m the type of person that’s always getting themselves into something. Like bean dip at parties, or almost drowning at Coon Rapids Dam, or initiating and consequently ending seven different relationships that I mistook for “romantic love”. I never really intend for these things to happen, and yet they do.

So when I saw that little kid being followed by a much, much older man who had that sort of smug, creepish smile about him, I knew I was getting into something big. Again.

I tried using logic and reasoning. After all, it wasn’t unheard of that kids would go to parks with their grandfathers or uncles or really, really old fathers. Or guardians. But this guy seemed off, because he was following at a distance. The kid was pretty much oblivious to him, which I think is just normal behavior for someone so young. The little sucker was probably in his own imaginary world, minding whatever business kids have to mind. I couldn’t help but notice that there wasn’t even a vague resemblance between the two—they looked like completely different people. The kid had dark hair and pale skin, and the man had the kind of blond hair that you’d find on a cob of corn, if that cob of corn were also severely sunweathered. I looked around for anyone else who could be the kid’s caretaker. Not that it was any of my business, that is, but I know the feeling of getting into something, and sometimes you just can’t resist. So I turned around and scanned the whole park/playground area, finding two moms packing up their cars to go, two girls as scrawny as toothpicks fighting over the last 30 seconds on the swing, and an older (perhaps in their 50s) couple leading a chain of hand-holding toddlers to a daycare bus.

The kid I was keeping an eye on was closer in size to the toddlers than the two scrawny children, so I ran over to the couple and asked them if he was one of theirs.

“Who?” The lady frowned, her coral lipstick crinkling gently at the corners of her mouth.

“That one.” I pointed.

“The one trying to eat a pine cone?”

“Yes, ma’am. Is he yours?”

She looked troubled. “No, I’m sorry. I thought he might have been your child.”

Apparently everyone at this park was making assumptions. Well, that was fine by me. Can’t be a hypocrite in this economy. “Oh. Well, he’s not, but don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on him.”

  
She nodded. “Well, I’ve got to get going…”

“Oh, yeah. Of course.” I made a flapping motion in the general direction of the bus. “You go. Thank you, by the way. Have a good one!”

Back to my watching of the kid… he must not have been a bright one. He was still trying to find something edible in the shrubbery. For the moment, the old man was nowhere to be seen.

The two mothers called their children, one sweetly, and one with a lack of and yet hinting at expletives, to get in the car. The girls sullenly obeyed, smacking each others’ wrists on the way back.

“You’re stupid,” one sneered.

“YOU’RE stupid!” the other retaliated in that redundant manner kids often do.

I laughed under my breath and sat down on a wooden bench to contemplate my questionable and conniving habits of getting into things. Oh, yeah, and to look out for Kid, who had given up on eating things and was now chasing birds across the far field.

It took me about 5 minutes to come to the reasonable conclusion that this sort of “getting into things” was just me doing my civic duty when I realized the old guy was coming towards me and Kid was nowhere to be seen.

“Hey,” he rasped as he got closer. His eyes reminded me of something I couldn’t put my finger on. They were blue and watery and sick, and were also definitely bloodshot. “I’m looking for… my grandson.” My heart jumped a little as he drew even closer, allowing me to catch bits and pieces of his haggard appearance. Scraggly beard. Teeth like butter—probably as mushy as butter, too—and hair raked over a nearly bare scalp, like a mangy dog licking its fur to cover the bald spots. “Yeah, my grandson. Have you seen him?”

His eyes—fish! They reminded me of a dead fish—darted around nervously. I took my time looking around the park for Kid. I still couldn’t see him.

“Nope,” I lied through my teeth and couldn’t stop thinking about how he paused when he said “looking for my…” as if he were trying to think of something believable. I took a breath and desperately begged myself not to jump to conclusions.

“Oh,” He said, visibly disappointed. “Well.” And he walked off, headed in the direction of the far field. Just to be sure, I watched him go, still disgusted by his fish eyes. And his lengthy pause.

“Is he gone yet?” A voice from under the bench made me leap spontaneously from my resting spot. I ducked my head under the wood and saw Kid’s bright green eyes peering out at me from the shade and safety.

“Oh, Lord,” I moaned angrily. “You almost gave me a heart attack! Yes, he’s gone.”

“You’re sure?” Kid poked his head out, looked around, and seemed warily satisfied before climbing out to sit on the bench beside me. Aside from seeming to be completely alone, he had the strangest clothes on. If I didn’t just find this kid in a neighborhood park, and maybe saw him in the paper under the headline “Successor of the Russian Throne,” then I’d have taken him for a little prince. He had a little white cuffed shirt with silver buttons, and suspenders that hooked onto his shorts, which were pine green and tailored nicely. They even had little snakes going around the hem on each leg. His shoes were like something out of the pilgrim-colonial days; black leather with gleaming silver buckles. If my red Converse could talk, I’m sure they’d just giggle and wave to these elegant foot decorations that so clearly outdid them. I imagine my favorite shoes to be a pair of consistently-flustered female twins. They giggle and wave at just about every fancy shoe.

“What’s your name?” I asked him. “How old are you? Are you here alone?”

‘Geez, just keep grilling him, why don’t you.’ My brain smacked me upside the head. Metaphorically speaking.

“You first.” He kicked the air nonchalantly, but the way he kept looking around, he was either really excited or really nervous. Kid’s eyes were scrutinizing the horizon like nobody’s business. 

“I’m (Y/N), twenty-two years old. Also here alone.” I waited, and shoved my hands into my pockets as far as they would go, so I wouldn’t start picking my nails or something.

Kid looked at me, tilting his head to the side as if he couldn’t see me well enough already. I blinked as naively as I could and he squinted, most likely judging that I was safe enough to trust.

“My name is Prince Loki and I am seven...years...old,” He said, frowning and counting on his fingers. I’m not sure what kind of math he was doing, but from the way his hands were flying, I didn’t think I wanted to know. “I fell here alone. I was playing hide and seek and tricked Heimdall, so now I’m here. Alone.” He looked around again. “Is the man going to come back?”

“I hope not.” I had to stifle a chuckle—maybe all the pine cones he’d been gnawing had taken a toll on his mind; sustained some “drain bamage”. Then I stopped laughing, because I saw a familiar figure lumbering on the distant horizon.

“Kid, where are your parents?”

He pointed to the sky. Oh, God, not an orphan.

“Who takes care of you, I mean?” The figure didn’t really look like it was coming closer, but I wasn’t sure. You can’t be so sure with things like that.

“My parents,’ He said rather snottily. Well. An orphan with an attitude. “They  _ live  _ up  _ there,  _ in  _ Asgard.”  _

“Okay, Kid, time to drop the Norse mythology,” I said dryly, growing a cherry pit of concern in my gut. “Your real parents, here on Earth. Where are they?”

“I don’t HAVE Earth parents!” He raised his voice a few annoyingly pitched decibels, and I winced slightly. “My mother and father are in Asgard!”

The figure in the distance was stumbling towards us now at an alarming rate. Something glinted in the sunlight at his side. A bottle of scotch, maybe. Or the world’s biggest kitchen knife. A meat cleaver? It was starting to look like a meat cleaver.

“Listen, we have to go.” I told Kid. “I don’t know if you’re mental or if you don’t trust me or what, but I can drop you off at the police station or something, and they can figure out who you belong to. Or if you know how to get home from here…”

A strange look came over his face and he concentrated for a second, possibly trying to recall an address. “You can go anywhere from here?”

“Yes,” I replied, a bit distracted by the man coming back around our way. He was yelling something I couldn’t quite make out. I started to squirm with paranoia.

“Alright, I’ll tell you the way, when we-”

He didn’t have time to say much else, because my nerves had gotten the better of me the second that old man broke into a run waving whatever was in his hand and hollering at the top of his lungs. I snatched up the kid and started booking it to my car, yelling for him to tell me an address.

“To the north! The north!” He screamed and clutched onto my windbreaker, beating on my back and telling me to go faster, he’s close, he’s coming closer—

Fifty feet. Thirty feet. Ten feet away from my car, a couple with a stroller came meandering into the park and looked utterly surprised and horrified to see a panicked woman running with a child in arms away from a man waving around an honest-to-God meat cleaver.

“That’s my grandson!” I heard him yell. “That woman is kidnapping my grandson!”

Great. Well, there’s no stopping what’s already in motion. We made it to my car and I unlocked the doors with one hand and tossed the ‘little prince’ into the passenger seat with the other. My hands were shaking like two of those 6.0 magnitude earthquakes in California.

“Hey! Hey!” Oh boy,  _ two  _ people chasing me! What fun. I desperately searched for something to say in so little words that would inform these oddly involved bystanders of the situation with Mr. Meat Cleaver, but when you’re riding a 50 foot adrenaline wave, most of the comprehensible English dictionary escapes you. Luckily, Kid did that work for me, leaning out the window as I squealed into reverse.

“She’s my MOM!” He howled, and proceeded to stick his tongue out as the tires of my poor blue Chevy screamed on the dry, pitted asphalt. Those watery blue fish eyes haunted my rearview mirror, and my thoughts, for the next fifteen blocks. On block sixteen, I was still trying to grasp the situation I’d just taken a flying leap into.

“Why are you breathing so heavily?” asked the particularly well-spoken little prince.

“Because I am a little bit  _ stressed, _ ” I answered, realizing that the grip I had on the steering wheel was leaving my hands numb. “I have a  _ child  _ in my  _ car  _ who is  _ not mine  _ and-” I braked heavily at a stop sign and he nearly flew out the windshield. “And will you put your seatbelt on and tell me your address!”

Smoothing down his rumpled black hair, the kid turned to glare seethingly at me. “What is a  _ seatbelt? _ ”

“This!” I slapped my chest and realized with a groan that I forgot to put mine on. “The—the buckle by your shoulder. Strap in, and tell me where you live so I can dump you at your house and be done feeling guilty for stealing someone’s child.”

He did as told, gleaming green eyes narrowed at me like two little Mountain Dew bottle caps. “I live… in the North.”

“North where?” Were hands really meant to sweat this much? Yeesh. “North Shore? North Dakota? North Carolina? Scandinavia? The Arctic North? How ‘north’ are we talking?”

“Um,” He said, looking away, as if searching for an answer in the cloudless blue sky.

“Oh, Lord,” I gingerly stepped on the gas to get us through another small intersection. “Please tell me you actually know.”

“Is that a map of the world?” Kid asked suddenly, pressing his nose to my car window to get a good look at something as we passed a bus stop.

“Yeah. ...Wait, can you point it out on there?” It was a long shot, but…

“Yyyyyes. Yes.” Little Prince didn’t sound so sure, but I was willing to try anything to get him and a potential police record off of my hands, so I threw the car into reverse and prayed someone wouldn’t come around the corner. Parallel parking was never my strong suit, but I pulled as close as possible to the stop and told Kid how to roll down his window.

“Wow,” He said, almost amazed. “Fascinating!”

I told him to shush and look at the map. He shot me a look, but all I could think was:  _ who taught this kid the word ‘fascinating’? _

“Got it yet?”

“Um, yes. Here.” Kid pointed.

Oh no. Oh no he did not. No, he did not just point to the wastelands of northern Canada. As in, specifically, the uninhabitable zone. Nuh-uh. No, he didn’t.

Of course he did.

“Try lower,” I said.

He looked as if he might stick his tongue out at me, but seemed to think it over and instead got a sly look on his face. Oh no. No. Something was happening here and I did not like it.

“If you turn me in to the poh-lees, as you call them,” He sniffed mildly, examining his nails like a twenty-something year old blonde diva. “I’ll just tell them you stole me.”

“From who? They’ll think it’s pretty weird that you don’t have parents.” Hah. Thought he had me.

Kid looked at me with those intense green eyes, and I got even more weirded out. If he weren’t so little, I would’ve thought he possessed some sort of black magic, or something. Aw, heck. Who knows. I’m sure there are a lot of kids who look like they possess black magic and act like it too. He slipped out of his seatbelt, nearly climbing on top of me and grabbing my collar. I was going to let him, just because I thought it was amusing, but then I noticed a cute silver knife protruding from his shirt sleeve.

He closed his eyes for a second, concentrated, and when I was in the middle of deciding how to best throw him off of me without hurting him or making it look like I was up to some sort of criminal activity, he opened his eyes and looked at me and—

“What the-!” His eyes were a different color. A different color! Holy shit. Black magic. Black magic. CULT. ACTIVITY. IN. THIS. CAR.

“Mr. Police Man, my name is Adam Lewinski,” Kid’s voice trembled convincingly, and oh my dear sweet Jesus, he SOUNDED different too. Oh, lord. “I was just playing at the park with my sisters and—and—this lady,” His eyes, now a piercing blue, filled with tears. “This lady came and got me and s-she-”

“Okay!” I nearly screamed. “We’re going north! Just stop whatever the hell you’re doing, because it’s  _ scaring the bejeezus out of me!” _

In the next moment, his knife was slid neatly up his sleeve and his eyes were green and his voice was back to… well, Prince Loki’s, I guess. If I could even be sure. “Thank you,” he said, sweetly, leaning back in the passenger seat.

“Don’t do that again,” I said, still panting like a racehorse.

“No promises.”

“Yes promises. Promise me very much that you won’t do that again.” I glanced at him, still freaked out. Man, you never realize how much you need to use the bathroom until a demon child scares you out of your wits. “I’m gonna go to my house, pack a bag, and see about getting you to…”

“Nunavut,” He said, with almost perfect pronunciation. Demon child from severely-north Canada. Hm. Yes. I had most certainly just gotten myself into something—probably the biggest something I was ever going to get into in my entire life.

“Okay,” I sighed, and put the car in drive. “Let’s go.”

He cheered and bounced around in the passenger side of my old Impala for a second before I scolded him and told him to put his seat belt on.

  
  


I was in the middle of trying to fit my favorite pair of blue jeans into a duffel bag when the realization hit me.

“I am running away to Canada with a demon child that I do not know the origin of.”

Now, this may seem like quite the obvious fact, but when so many events happen in your life within the same 24 hours, it doesn’t always become apparent right away how far up shit creek you are. I mean, this kid  _ had  _ to have parents. Maybe he was just super obsessed with Norse mythology and had a secret love for Canada. Maybe I should turn him over to the police. And what of Mr. Meat Cleaver? Someone had to report him, right?

So I tossed the bag on my bed where it landed with a depressed  _ thump _ and I went to pick up the phone. The call lasted about a minute. Surprisingly, the lady on the other end sounded like she just wanted to get it over with.

“Kid still in your car?” Was that a snap of gum I heard? Geez, she wasn’t even mildly interested in the fact that I had no idea where Prince Loki came from. Of course, I think I might’ve held back on the weirdness factor. Part of my brain was working to convince me that I’d just drank a little too much coffee and hallucinated the whole black magic ordeal. Coffee can do things to you if you’re not careful.

“Yeah, he is.”

“O. K. Can you bring him in? We’ll have a family resources officer waiting for you.” She sounded like she had blond hair that was starting to go a little grey, and bored blue eyes that held judgment only for those who were younger and prettier than her.

“Sounds good to me, I’ll be there in fifteen.” I looked at the clock, made a mental note of the time, hung up, and began to walk down the hall to my car. Then I turned around, stuffed my jeans in my bag, and brought it with me.

  
  
  


“Hey,” I said to Prince Loki, as he was flipping through the manual of the Impala. Where’d he find that? Apparently I would never know. It vanished as soon as he looked at me.

Black magic or too much black coffee? I blinked and told myself he just put it under his seat really fast.

“Hey.” He repeated back to me. “Are we going to depart now?”

“Yeah. Who taught you English?” I wondered aloud at the miracle of a seven year old using the word “depart” correctly.

“My father.”

“Huh.” Maybe his dad was an English major. That would explain the Norse mythology. There were several writing units on that stuff way back in freshman year of high school - not that it matters, really, but I was trying to piece this kid’s background together as I drove him and his unwitting little self to the police station to be printed and hopefully returned to his parents by law enforcement. Well, you know. I was curious. You don’t always get chances like this, and I was sorry I had to do the right thing and give this chance away.

The ride was mostly silent. I think Kid was an introvert and had gotten pretty tired out already. I mean,  _ I  _ wanted to go to bed, just from the pure adrenaline that had been coursing through my system today. So it wasn’t all that difficult to believe that a pint-size prince would feel about the same, if not even more exhausted.

He had just about fallen asleep when I scooped him up from his car seat and fast-walked him into the big police building on Main Street before he could start fighting. All he could really do was hang on and look at me drowsily, which, I hate to admit, was kind of adorable. I’d wanted kids until my last relationship took a bad turn, and then I decided I didn’t want them after all. But I guess a part of me still did, because it felt right, carrying him around like that when he was all sleepy. It was cute. I missed him already.

“Oh, there she is,” said the familiar voice of the lady I’d been speaking to on the phone. “That’s her, Lamar, I’m certain of it.”

“Yes, ma’am.” A deeper voice followed and, witnessing the lady behind the desk and the family resources officer beside her, I thought of two things: one, this building was  _ too  _ professional for me to be wearing Converse; and two, I was right! She had blonde greying hair and blue eyes - though they were starting to get a little less bored-looking because Little Prince was beginning to wake up and put up a fight.

“Nunavut!” He hollered, and began to yank on my t-shirt. “You were going to take me to Nunavut! What kind of-” And then he started speaking in tongues, or something. I thought maybe he was going to put a curse on all of us, but suddenly he stopped, and got that coy little look on his face again. Oh, boy, were we in for it.

“Okay, so he said he lives in Canada.” I told the family resource officer as he took us to the kids’ room. “He pointed at Canada on a map and said he lives, like, really far north. In… Nunavut.”

Prince Loki did his best quiet and scared sulking, curled up to my collarbone. He was starting to become a deadweight in my arms, which was irritating to say the least. I kept shifting him around to try to ease the strain on my arms, but I just wasn’t as strong as I used to be.

“I’m gonna let you down now,” I murmured to him. He said nothing, and slid down from me as easily as a monkey from a tree. Something still wasn’t right.

“I see.” The officer, Lamar, if I’d heard correctly, nodded. “I’ll need to fingerprint you both and get your pictures for the records. I assume you’ll want to file a report, Miss…?”

“(L/N),” I sighed as my Converse followed his sleek black police-issue shoes to the room where we were to be photographed. “(Y/N) (L/N).” Prince Loki shot me a look which I couldn’t possibly decipher the meaning of, other than vague interest.

“Okay, Miss (L/N), stand against the wall please.” Lamar was kinder than the woman on the phone, but he didn’t sound any less disinterested. I wondered offhandedly if perhaps the police force didn’t have enough to deal with in this town as of recent.

“Alright.” I did as told and smiled awkwardly for a sort-of mugshot. When it was his turn, Loki did the same, though with a more serious and thoughtful expression. When it was over with, he asked politely to see the ‘black box that flashed’.

“The camera?” Lamar smiled with beautiful white teeth and bent down to show Loki how the camera worked. Interesting that this kid had never seen a camera before. I mean, it wasn’t like they were just invented, or anything. Interesting, indeed. Next, Lamar had us fingerprinted. My prints returned normally in the computer system, which Loki was also very intrigued by—but something weird happened when it was his turn to be printed. He… didn’t have any fingerprints.

“Um,” Lamar said when the little paper square for Loki’s thumb looked up at him with a big round ink splotch.

“Uh,” I said, staring at the very same thing.

Loki smiled innocently, and went back to staring intently at the keyboard, as if he were trying to memorize the layout or something.

“Let’s… try another finger…?” Even Lamar didn’t sound so sure. We were both surprised when the same thing happened. Again. And again. And… again. All ten fingers and thumbs didn’t have any ‘print’ to speak of. They were just smooth, like somebody had burned his fingerprints off; but that couldn’t’ve been the case either - no scar tissue.

“Well.” Lamar stood and scratched his head for a moment. “...well.”

“What now?” I asked.

“The report,” He said, rather uncertainly. I nodded and took the yellow form which he held out to me. I filled out the details of our arrival and how exactly I came to find Prince Loki at the park—though I referred to him exclusively as ‘Kid’ on the page, and tried my best to call the old man who’d come raving at us as anything but the moniker “Mr. Meat Cleaver”, no matter how fitting I thought it was. Lamar read over my shoulder and asked, “Hey, little man, what’s your name?”

“Prince Loki of Asgard.” The boy responded, still engrossed in figuring out the computer sitting on the officer’s desk like a dejected hunk of metal.

Lamar looked at me with a raised eyebrow. I gave my best “I-don’t-know-I-just-found-him” shrug.

After Lamar left to file the report with the blonde-grey sitting behind the desk, Loki turned to me with a deathly glare.

“You  _ said. _ ”

“Look, Kid,” I started. “When you’re in my position, and you have to make rational decisions because you’re kind of an adult-”

What I wasn’t expecting at that moment was precisely what happened. Loki’s bright green eyes began to fill with tears. “I just want to go back to my mother and father. Is that so difficult of a request to fulfill?”

“This is the best way I know how,” I whispered to him, wishing desperately I could comfort him better. But he didn’t want to be touched. He recoiled from my reach for a hug and instead wrapped his arms around himself.

“It’s wrong.” He said simply, and stared at the computer screen until Lamar came back.

“There’s no record of him in the system. No “Loki of Asgard”, and no kid that matches the pictures.” Lamar looked about as puzzled as I’d been feeling all day. “So I guess it’s foster care for you, then, bud.”

Loki snapped his head up to meet Lamar’s gaze with his burning green eyes. “What’s foster care?”

“It’s where you stay in a nice home with other kids who don’t have parents, and adults who want kids will come in and fill out paperwork to take you home and see if you’re a good fit for the child they want.” Lamar tried to explain all this in a friendly voice, but I could see that this had effectively thrown a wrench in whatever Prince Loki the Kid had been planning.

“No!” Loki shook his head fervently and glared at me from where he sat, rooted to Lamar’s desk chair.

I really didn’t know what to say. I was caught looking between the two, trying to judge the situation and what role I was supposed to be playing, exactly.

“Um,” I began, and then Loki did the second most unexpected thing that honestly, I probably should have begun to expect by now. That’s what they say, isn’t it?  _ Expect the unexpected?  _ He ran over to where I sat, in a little purple plastic chair that was most certainly meant for kids, and leapt into my lap.

“I don’t wanna leave!” He howled and put on the most ridiculous show of sobbing and carrying on that I have ever seen in my life.

“Oh, my.” Lamar, for a family resource officer, must have been pretty new, because he looked like he didn’t know what to do.

“Um.” I said again, and coughed lightly. “Is there any way-?”

“DON’T LET THEM TAKE ME!” A short list of the world’s most painful things: one, nonlethal gunshot; two, giving birth; three, being kicked where the sun don’t shine; four, breaking a bone; and five, having a little demon child with no fingerprints beating his little fists on your collarbone while shrieking directly into your ears.

“Loki, shush.” I tried to get a hold on him so I could evict him from the comfort of my lap, but he squirmed and wouldn’t let go of my shirt. It was like having a cross between a monkey and a leech stuck to you. I looked up at Lamar, slightly embarrassed, but mostly just tired and wanting to save my eardrums before they burst. “Is there any way I could just… adopt him now?”

“Well-”

Prince Loki of Asgard burst into a fresh new round of screaming and writhing like he was on fire.

“Okay!” Lamar said, brown eyes glinting with concern and a little ashamed amusement. “Okay, I’ll go see what I can do.”

He jogged out to the hall where the woman was presumably still seated at her desk, snapping raspberry gum and filing her nails.

Loki quieted almost immediately, but didn’t clamber off of me like I expected.

“You are not my mother.” He informed me coldly. “You will adopt me and then take me to Nunavut, where I  _ said to go in the first place. _ ”

“Okay, bossy.” I wrinkled my nose and stuck my tongue out at him. “Any other instructions, your highness? Huh? How about we don’t wreck my eardrums causing a scene next time?”

He opened his mouth as if to scream, but at that moment, the dashing Lamar returned to the room, panting lightly as if he’d just run the length of the building.

“Here are the forms for legal adoption. Normally, you’d need an adoption lawyer, and quite a few court proceedings to back up your formal adoption, but…” Lamar glanced at Loki, who was still red-faced and teary-eyed. “Marge says we can make an exception for this one, since he’s not in any known world database.”

“Wait, what?” I asked.

“None. No country on earth has a record of him. There are several kids who look  _ like  _ him, but none that perfectly match. And all the John Doe kids we’ve had in cold case files over the years don’t match up to his age or appearance.” Lamar bent down to talk to Loki, as if he were something entertaining and curious. “What did you say your name was?”

  
“Prince Loki of Asgard,” he sniffed, still putting on a show of misery. I fought the urge to roll my eyes and focused on filling out the forms as quickly as I could with a heap of a distraught seven-year-old in my lap.

“What about your real-” Lamar must have noticed me drop the pen and shake my head wildly from side to side, because he shut up right away—but the question was already half-asked.

“That  _ is  _ my real name!” Loki was gearing up for another earsplitting tantrum when Lamar backed off.

“Okay, little man, that’s your real name.” The officer looked at me. “No one knows him. We’re just as stumped as you. But if you’re okay with legally adopting him…”

“Oh, absolutely.” I smiled, and, despite the predicament, it felt… natural. “He’s kinda grown on me.”

Lamar and I both looked at Loki, who was still clinging like a little monkey to my t-shirt, and we laughed.

“What’s so funny?” He asked, which only made us laugh harder.

It took me about twenty minutes to fill out the rest of the forms, which came in all sorts of interesting colors. My least favorite were probably the yellow ones. They seemed more legal than any of the rest. But there was a cheerful mint green one that I really liked—it reminded me of Kid’s eyes.

I wondered when I’d be able to stop calling him Kid in my mind. I knew at some point I was going to have to address him by a real name, not just Kid or Prince Loki; although he sure was making a big fit of that being his actual name. So maybe it was. But if I was going to call him that, I wouldn’t tack on the Prince. Not unless he was going to call me Queen (Y/N). It only seemed fair.

So, after a hefty stack of paperwork and a few more provisions from the state, I, ‘Queen (Y/N)’, was the proud guardian of a child that literally no one on the face of the earth was aware existed. Lamar waved us off in the lobby of the building.

“Good luck, Miss,” He called, and added, “You too, little man!”

“Thank you, and you as well!” Loki called. I nodded and smiled at the resources officer. Once we crossed the tidy front walk to the ‘67 Impala, Loki turned and fixed me with a sharp green-hued stare.

“Nunavut.”

“I know.” I said, already exhausted. “But it’s going to look awfully suspicious if I adopt you and then hit the road. To Nunavut, specifically. There’s checks, you know. From the state. They look in on you to see how you’re doing.”

The seven-year-old muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like it might be a curse, and thought hard while climbing into the familiar passenger seat. I walked around the back, eyeing the duffel bag in the backseat, wondering what I’d do. I had most definitely gotten myself into something  _ big. _

“When’s the first state check?” Loki asked the second I closed the driver’s side door behind me.

“In about a month,” I replied, turning the key in the ignition. The car started faithfully, rumbling away at the curb, and I pulled the gear into reverse. “No, we can’t go to Nunavut in that time.”

“First of all, we will, you promised,” Loki’s voice was steely and cold and it would have been hilarious to hear from a seven-year-old, were he not in possession of a very sharp knife. “And second of all, why not? It can’t be far. This machine goes very fast.”

“Well, first of all, your highness,” I responded sardonically. “I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. And second of all, it takes 25 hours to drive there from one of the northernmost states in this country.”

“You see? Hardly an earthen day.” Loki reclined in his seat and sighed contentedly.

“We are not in that northernmost state. It would take around 36 hours for us, because we’re farther south.”

“All right. Still not a month.”

I grit my teeth. “And there are no roads leading to Nunavut.”

This made him perk up uncertainly. “What?”

“I said, there are no roads leading to Nunavut.” I entered the old Impala into the flow of midafternoon traffic gently, doing my best to focus on my surroundings. I was tired, and overwhelmed, and the last thing I wanted to do was get into an accident a few seconds after adopting a kid, because that was usually the kind of havoc karma wreaked on me. “There are roads IN Nunavut, but none going out from or leading in to the province. Also, Sixty here-” I patted the dashboard of my car lovingly, “-is not built for offroading in the snowy wastelands of the north. So. Until I can figure something out, we’re staying at my house.”

This seemed to shut him up, which I was somewhat thankful for, and somewhat concerned about. We made it home alive, though, thanks to that silence, and after parking the car in the garage I sat for a moment behind the wheel and just rubbed my eyes until I started to see little colorful sparks. This… was going to be life-draining work.

An odd sound filled the car for a moment. It was a pair of quiet, squeaky growls that emanated from our stomachs. I looked at him. He looked at me.

“Hungry?” I asked. He nodded vehemently.

“Me too.” I said, opening the car door to step out and hopefully find my way to the kitchen to make some macaroni and cheese. Loki mirrored my actions and we slammed our car doors together. As he leapt towards the back of my little green-siding blue-roof house, I stayed in the garage a moment, staring thoughtfully at my duffel bag. Then I followed Kid up the steps, keys in hand.

You could definitely say I’m the type of person who’s always getting themselves into something. And this time was really no different.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trip begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this is as fun to read as it is to write! :) Enjoy!

When I woke up, the first thing I saw was my pleasantly unassuming living room. The curtains had been pulled haphazardly across the bay window, letting in a single beam of sunlight. Hazily, I tried to recollect what had happened last night. Something involving… macaroni and cheese… brownies and milk… and the Transformers cartoon from the 80’s… ah, yes. And Kid. I closed my eyes a moment longer and snuggled into the drab blue blanket that had spent the last few years being slung across the back of my couch. Kid could wait.

...

Where was he, anyway?

It was at that moment I realized three things: one, Kid was no longer curled up on the opposite side of the couch, where he had been when we both fell asleep. Two, tendrils of smoke were tickling the ceiling and reaching for the alarm that I’d probably forgotten to put batteries in. Three, I recognized the smell of breakfast being burnt. Leaping from the couch, I immediately tripped over the snickering blue blanket and fell on my face, hollering for Kid to stop whatever he was doing.

“What?” Kid shouted from the kitchen.

I scrambled to my feet, shook the blanket off my ankle, ran to the doorway of the kitchen and opened my mouth to say “WHY ARE THERE CHEERIOS IN A POT ON THE STOVE?”, but the smoke alarm beat me to it.

You know, looking back on it, I’m sure my neighbors loved me. If not for having the decency to commence with screaming at later hours in the morning, then at least for providing some entertainment. Imagine being a lovely little housewife in your fifties, sitting down and cross-stitching on your front porch, watching the woman next door go crazy flapping a blue blanket at the ceiling, hearing a faint but infernal beeping and the laughter of a child. A child who, if you looked past your cross-stitch needle and thread, you could see was obviously supposed to be scraping burned Cheerios out of a beautiful cherry-red now-ruined saucepan, but was in fact bent over with laughter at the sight of his adopted mom climbing on the counter and swearing at the smoke detector while trying to rip the batteries out. And even more entertaining would it be if, perhaps, when the infernal beeping finally ceased, another smoke alarm in the house went off, prompting the child to fall off the chair with laughter and the mother to run around the house throwing open all the windows while screaming like an angry banshee. Wouldn’t it be entertaining? I think it would be entertaining to everybody. Except for the adoptive mother, of course.

Except for the adoptive mother.

Finally, after my morning run-around-the-house and smoke clearing, I sat down at the dining room table and sighed. Once. Twice. Heavily. Miserably. I looked at Kid, who had finally stopped laughing, and was beginning to look a little sheepish. Maybe even apologetic. Nah, that was probably too much to expect.

“Why,” I began slowly, trying to connect the dots in my own head with a power fiercer than that of any Norse hero, “why did you think Cheerios went on the stove?”

“Because you made the macaroni on the stove?” He said, as if it might be perfectly obvious why he put three cups of dry Cheerios in half a quart of water and boiled the mix until it was charcoal-esque. “And because the macaroni is in a macaroni container? And the cereal is also in a macaroni container?”

It took me a moment, but I realized that he actually wasn’t lying. I had a set of recycled peanut butter jars that I used as containers for macaroni, cereal, sugar, flour, peanuts, walnuts, pecans, and pretty much every baking item you could think of that came in a bag I didn’t want to wrestle with. My philosophy is this: Containers Are Just Easier. And they are. Until a small child misconstrues the meaning and wrecks your absolute favorite pan because apparently they’ve never handled, or even seen, a modern cooking apparatus.

“Tell me, o Norse prince of mine,” I pulled my favorite saucepan towards me like I was being told to identify the body of the love of my life, and I had to hold his hand to be sure it was really him under that cold, dead appearance. “What kind of food does your mother make? Nothing in a pan?”

Kid Loki scoffed so hard I thought he’d just coughed something up. “My mother doesn’t cook.” He smiled sweetly. “The servants do that.”

I deadpanned. “Servants. Right. Of course. They’re the ones who cook.”

“And clean,” he added. “I’ve never had to make the bed a day in my life.”

“Oh, now I know you’re a real prince. Only royalty could be as grossly uncultured as that.” I wrenched the spoon Kid had been using to stir out of the middle of some grey Cheerio-ish mass and began to chip away at my beautiful pan. “Seriously, what can you do?”

“Practice seidr.” He grinned even wider and got that black magic look on his face again.

“Don’t,” I warned.

“Okay.” He hummed absentmindedly and swung his legs back and forth while I put all the elbow grease I possibly could into removing the Thing from my precious pan. It wouldn’t come easily. I thought I might have to run some water over it to turn it into a sort of sludge, but before I could, the pan blipped in and out of my vision for a second, and when it was back in my hands, it was sparkling clean - as if I’d just bought it. I gasped.

“Loki!”

“Yes?” He blinked innocently.

“You-” I stared at him, looked down at the pan, and looked back at him.

“Seidr,” The raven-haired little mischief-manager replied simply. “A thank you would be nice. Especially from someone who thinks I’m…” Here, he pulled air quotes. “‘Grossly uncultured’.”

“Where did you learn that?” I frowned at him.

“Thank you,” he insisted, furrowing his eyebrows at me.

“Fine, Loki. Thank you.” I said as sincerely as I could, and held my pan up to give it a big MWAH! kiss right on the side, which made him laugh, and that made me smile. “Where did you learn that, though?”

“You were doing it all through dinner when you were talking about-” -more air quotes- “‘Norse Mythology’. Which isn’t mythology, by the way. The stories are all true. You can take it from me, I’m an expert, since I’m Norse.” He smiled cheekily at me and I could have taken him seriously, but at that moment his stomach growled and I became very aware that he was now my responsibility.

“Right.” I clapped my hands together. “Food. Then… what day is it?” I squinted at the calendar in the corner, but before I could make out the day, Loki said, “It’s Saturday.”

“That it is, my prince. Food, then bank, then grocery, then post office, then home to do some work. How about it?”

“Mmm,” Loki slid off his chair and followed me into the kitchen, where I was already thumbing through cookbooks on the shelf above my oven, trying to find the recipe that would give me the best Belgian waffles I’d ever had. “Then Nunavut?”

“Ah, yes. The question of your parents.” I paused, plucked the correct cookbook down from its place on the shelf, and sighed the deepest sigh yet while I flipped through it in search for the recipe. “You know what? While I’m making these-”

“Oooo,” Kid Loki was captivated by the well-lit, probably-very-staged photo of two fluffy waffles with whipped butter, syrup, and a pile of bright and delicious berries on top.

“While I’m making these with the few ingredients that we do have, you can tell me all about your family. How about it?” I said, thumping the book on the counter and admiring the way he followed me to the kitchen sink. We washed our hands together while he pondered the concept, and he turned to look at me, fixing me once again with that emerald stare that I found unnerving - and in this case, quite sad.

“You’ll just say it’s all a myth. Or a legend.” He looked down at the cookbook, and that’s probably the most conflicted expression I’d ever seen on a child’s face. Well. A child as odd as this one, anyway. Still, I felt bad. I had been hard on him, and I still didn’t really buy the whole Norse god thing, but Kid Loki seemed so disillusioned and cut up by being displaced that I really just couldn’t not believe him.

Plus, there was that whole black magic thing. I was seriously beginning to question my sanity. So I thought I might as well listen to his side of the story and if it at least made sense, then, what the hell. I’d probably believe it. I’ve been known to be susceptible to paranormal theories, actually, which is why more often than not I am referred to by my coworkers as “that’s the one who likes the ghosts yeah I told you about her last Tuesday hey can you tell that one story?”. It’s quite a long moniker, but one I was assuredly fond of.

“Hey.” I gently placed a hand on his shoulder and felt a little swell of that maternal pride when he didn’t immediately shy away. Loki looked at me like a cat looks at somebody they’re trying to get away from without hurting the person’s feelings, so I retracted my hand from his shoulder promptly and instead tousled his hair as gently as I could. “I’ll do my best to listen and believe you this time. Okay? Things haven’t quite made sense since I met you, so…” I smiled. “You can go ahead and explain everything. Teach me.”

I knew that last line would get him. Loki puffed up his chest and smiled like he was the god of knowledge. For all I knew, he could have been. While I carefully measured Bisquick and eggs and milk and a few other choice ingredients into the bowl, he told me pretty much everything about his life at home. And I’ll give him credit: his parents and his brother sounded very nice. Odin, his father, sounded like he was just the man Loki wanted to grow up to be, although I had some qualms about some stories in which it kind of sounded like he was pitting Loki against his brother. But then I thought about how my parents would routinely ask me whether I could keep up with so-and-so, and I thought maybe it wasn’t that bad. After all, I turned out okay.

Mostly.

His mother just sounded delightful; there was no other way to put it. The way his voice shifted when he talked about her, I could tell he really did love her and miss her. Loki described her to me as having the “fairest golden locks of any goddess”, and as being the “single most loving woman in the entirety of the nine realms”, staring off into the distance with those gypsy-green eyes of his, absently twirling a single black curl around his index finger. He compared her to a daylily, a summer rain, a glorious songbird… and I could tell, just from all that, that he missed his real mother most. But then he went on to chirp about his brother, Thor, and how he was a nice boy, the nicest, but that could sometimes get very very cumbersome when he is always nice and you are sometimes mean; because then:

“Everybody thinks you’re cunning and sly all of the time!” He threw his hands up in exasperation, nearly spilling the raspberries I’d told him to rinse. “All the time! Because Thor’s just nice, he’d never do that, he’s a fierce little warrior, but he wouldn’t put a snake in anybody’s bed…”

I stifled a giggle at the thought of Loki conjuring up a snake in someone’s bed to teach them a lesson, and then silenced myself the instant I came to the conclusion that he may still possess said snake-conjuring powers. “Oh, I know. You act up once or twice and they always have somebody to compare you to, right? Why can’t you be more like So-And-So? So-And-So doesn’t do this, and this, and this…” I spooned the waffle batter into the hot iron, pulled the top down, and pivoted it so that the little timer began to roll. “It gets irritating. Like, come on, Mom. Am I not allowed to make mistakes, ever?”

“You understand,” He nodded solemnly. “I thank you for that.”

“You’re very much welcome, Shakespeare. How about you hurry up with those raspberries? We’ve only got a few minutes before the first waffle’s done, and I’m assuming you want the honors.”

“Honors of what?” Kid Loki blinked at me, and you know, maybe I was kidding myself in that last relationship, because now I certainly wanted children if they were going to go to the trouble of looking that adorable.

I smiled and shook my head. “Honors of eating the first waffle, silly.”

“Oh!” He returned the smile happily and began rinsing the berries in earnest, every once in a while popping a couple in his mouth. When I saw him do it the first few times, it looked as if he’d never tasted something so sweet.  
Hm.  
Kid was kind of growing on me.

And now, to quietly contemplate how nice Canada might be this time of year.

Now don’t get me wrong: I’m not entirely insane. You might think I am, because I actually considered taking Kid to a place I was at least 80% sure he’d never been, and also because there was no record of him on the face of the earth, and because I was now his legal guardian, and also because, you know. It’s Nunavut. Why would I drive a day or two to get to a place with no road access? You see, I’d thought this through a million times. But every moment I considered just keeping Loki as my own child, because I’d adopted him, I thought of the things he’d told me about his family, and how he really missed them. Well, he didn’t tell me he missed them, but I could tell he did. It was in his body language. You know when kids are bouncy and excited for something exciting and new to happen, and then they get tired of it and kind of homesick? Kind of like that.

And he did have a good point; that the state would only check up on us at the end of the month, which was enough time to get there and back.

And I did have a habit of getting into things.

And Sixty did need some snow tires anyway.

So, I made us a thick and fluffy Belgian waffle each, topped with raspberries, dotted butter and maple syrup, and I poured Kid some milk instead of letting him have my coffee. I sat down and we ate and talked together and he told me more about his family while I went over the grocery list and considered how much money I’d have to withdraw from the bank, and if I could make it seem normal that I’d suddenly need about twelve hundred dollars when normally I only took a hundred for groceries. I mean, I guess if I had a kid like him with me, anything was possible. I looked at him and considered, too, the clothes he was wearing. They were the same as yesterday’s, wilted from sleep and running around and sweat from all that hard work he did being an absolute handful. And they did look nicely handcrafted, possibly something his mother made for him. I felt bad about that - his mother, such a darling woman, wouldn’t want her son running around in the same outfit for god knows how long. So, I resolved to get him a few different sets of clothing, just enough to last him one wash rotation. After all, I had a feeling he was very sentimental about those items, especially the shorts with the hems that were little embroidered snakes.

“How about you go and wash up, I’ll clear the plates, and we’ll get started on our shopping for today.” I watched as he ran down the hall and dodged in and out of rooms in search of the bathroom. It was funny, in a way. I’d seen several guests in my house do the same thing, but much more cautiously. The previous owner of the house had this neat little habit of making all the doors look exactly the same, and I just thought it was added entertainment to close them all and then invite people over and expect them to find the coat closet and bathroom themselves. Usually, they ended up in the laundry room or my bedroom, the latter of which Loki pinballed out of before slamming full-force into the bathroom sink.

I heard a bottle of some sort fall to the floor, but nothing shattered, thank god. “Watch out in there!”

“Sorry,” he called. I rolled my eyes and rinsed the syrupy plates and forks, stacking them in the sink to be dealt with later. After a few deliberating seconds (pen chewing included), I settled on a base amount of four hundred dollars, which was quadruple what I normally spent on shopping, anyway. I figured with his fanciful tastes, shopping at the usual clothing thrift markets wasn’t going to be the cinch it usually was for me, and I’d better bring extra money. Plus, as for driving to Nunavut… while I wasn’t sure they had ATMs in a place that had no roads leading to it, and while I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get across the border with an old passport, and while I wasn’t sure of reality at all anymore, it was worth a shot. I’d withdraw money as needed.

Just as I was asking myself if I could be considered a criminal for what I was about to embark on, Kid Loki arrived in the kitchen with his little pointedly-pale face shining and raven hair slightly damp.

“Hello again,” he said, rather casually for someone wrapped in a lavender bathrobe that’s three sizes too big for them. “Can I keep this?”

“Uh… still got your clothes on, right?” I covered my eyes with one hand just in case he decided he was one of those people who gestures to answer a question, and in case the answer to the question happened to be ‘no’.

“What kind of a question is that?”

“Well, you see, it’s a garment people frequently put on the second they finish bathing.” I explained rather sarcastically, but then thought he might actually be unaware of this fact. “And unless you’re wearing it for extra warmth in the wintertime, it’s pretty much something you wear if you are otherwise naked.”

“AUGH!”

Out of curiosity, I peeked through my fingers to see Kid practically tearing the poor lavender robe off of himself. What a clown. He tossed it over the back of one of the dining room chairs and when he’d settled himself, he gave me a stern look with those glowering green eyes. I gave him a look right back, though I’m not sure it was as steely as I intended.

“People are clean when they come out of the shower. I washed it a few days ago, too.”

“Still gross.”

“It’s not like I have a disease.”

“Still gross.”

I blew out a breath and tried not to giggle. “Okay. Yes, fine, gross. Wait out here while I get ready and please don’t touch anything.”

“I won’t if you wear it straight out of the bath,” Loki stuck his tongue out and scrunched his eyes closed.

I mocked his tongue-sticking and had to laugh to myself quietly as I locked myself in the bathroom. Karma really had it out for me, but she’d sent me the perfect kid.

Suffice to say the line at the bank was very long.

As it would be on a nice morning such as this.

I looked at my watch for the fifteenth time in five minutes and sighed again. Loki was hanging onto my leg, swaying backward and forward while gripping my jeans like a little monkey. His eyes were glazed over with boredom and people were giving him looks because of the attire he was in, which was still his rumpled princely uniform. I promised myself our first stop after the grocery would be Theodora’s, my favorite area thrift market. They were bound to have some… less conspicuous clothing.

“Next,” the homely teller called. Loki perked up his ears, but went back to being his lackluster, bored self when he realized it was actually the man in front of us who got to collect his money.

“(Y/N),” He said, yanking back on my jeans so hard I thought he might tear a hole.

“Quit it, you’re stretching the fabric.”

“I’m boooooored.”

“This is just what being an adult is like.” I told him in a low tone, and made a “shhh” gesture.

“What?” He said, a little louder than comfortable for the old woman nearby who promptly winced and adjusted her hearing aid.

“Loki.” I inhaled deeply and prayed to the brightly-lit ceiling for patience. “I know you’re really bored, but please, only a few more minutes. It won’t take long to get out of here.”

“You’d better be right.” Kid Loki scowled at me and I would have flicked him in the side of the head had the teller not called “Next” in that utterly monotone voice all tellers seem to have nowadays.

“Hi,” I offered to the woman behind the counter, who raised her eyebrow at me. After a moment of awkward silence, I ‘ahem’ed and slid the withdrawal card I’d filled out about 45 minutes ago across the white marble countertop. “Ooookay, here’s all my info, just here for my regular withdrawal… groceries and all.”

Her blue cats-eye glasses guarded her stolid brown eyes as she tacked my information into the computer. Loki stood on top of my shoes and sighed, pulling again at my jeans, and then my jacket.

“Quit it,” I whispered.

“Mmmnnn!” He whined in that way kids do when they’re about to have a fit. He squeezed his eyes shut and raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m so bored!”

“It won’t take long. We’re almost out.” I repeated in a whisper, and caught sight of the woman’s curious gaze.

“And who’s this young man?” She asked with a kind of curious enthusiasm.

“His name is Loki.” I said plainly, and Loki whirled around to shoot me an indignant look, stomping on my foot in the process.

“Prince Loki,” he corrected and turned back to the woman. “This is my new mom and she’s taking me to Nunavut like I asked her to.” Another dirty look.

“Oh, well.” The woman seemed mildly surprised. “It sounds like she’s an awfully nice mom, isn’t she?”

“Well, actually-”

“Alright,” I said, cutting it off there. “Loki, how about we let the nice lady do her job?”

Loki stuck his tongue out at me, and leapt back to step on top of my shoes again. “Fine.”

It looked as if the teller had to stifle a laugh. She’d almost taken on a new light, looking utterly happy at having met Loki the Adorable Inconvenience. “Alright, honey, here’s your shopping cash. Take care of the little one.” She paused while handing me a stack of twenties. “Loki. What a curious name. Is it Japanese?”

“Norse, actually,” I said, taking the money gratefully, quickly counting it and slipping it into the worn, unmarked envelope I usually carried my fare in. “And thank you, I will.”

The teller nodded absent-mindedly, completely focused on Loki, as if he were the most interesting thing in the world. She must have caught me staring, confused, because she hastily said, “He reminds me of my grandson.”

“Ah.” I nodded, and then froze. “Wait, are you sure he isn’t your grandson?”

“Oh, quite sure,” She said sadly, and I cursed to myself. Something must’ve happened to the poor kid. “But it’s nice to see… well. It’s nice to see someone like him again.”

“I’m… glad I could help?” I offered weakly.

“No matter.” She smiled. “Loki, would you like a candy?”

Now that really caught his attention. So much so that it made him stop wrestling with the elbow of my jacket. “A what?”

“A candy.” Then the teller produced from the bowels of her desk one of the biggest tubs of strawberry bon-bons I’d ever seen. My eyes were as wide as dinner plates, and widened even further when she told Loki he could have as many as he could fit in two handfuls.

“Really?” Loki cheered. “Thank you!”

I could’ve sworn I saw his hands grow an extra inch in length and width just to accommodate that many more bon-bons, but I might’ve just been upset with the fact that the teller didn’t consider that maybe Mom also wanted a strawberry bon-bon, even if Mom would have said no because Mom likes licorice more anyway.

“Enjoy,” The woman said, smiling through her blue, thick-rimmed cats-eye glasses.

“Oh, I will!” Loki bubbled with glee and popped a strawberry candy in his mouth, eyes widening at the flavor. “Mmm!”

So, let’s say the candy was enough to keep him from being bored during the shopping trip. My legs were already hurting from the wait at the bank, so I tried to make it go fast. Loki probably appreciated that, especially when I told him he could help stack things on the conveyor belt if he was quiet and polite to the cashier. Interestingly enough, he had a penchant for stacking cans. I had to confine him to the cart, though, after he stacked twelve cans while my back was turned and we almost had what lawyers would call An Incident involving the poor customer in front of us.

“Oh my god,” they said for the millionth time after I finished berating Loki for not unstacking before the belt advanced.

“But I caught them! I caught them!”

“Oh my god,” the person wheezed.

“I am so sorry,” I tried again.

“It’s fine,” they said, even though almost killing somebody in a canned-fruit pileup was most certainly not fine.

I turned back to Loki, who averted his eyes and stacked cans on the belt two at a time from his seat in the cart. He remained quiet through the interaction through the cashier, who awarded him a little sticker for being so entertaining. This brought the bounce back to his step and the volume back to his voice. Man, I didn’t think a headache could be so bad.

“We’re off!” He chanted. “We’re off, we’re off, we’re off!”

“Now hold on just a second,” I said, regretting having told him about taking him to Nunavut already. “I have some mail to drop off and you, sir, need a few sets of clothing for this trip.”

Loki stopped skipping for a second, thought about this, and squinted at me. “But I can keep these garments? And we’ll be on our way soon?”

“Yes. Alright.” I shouted over the din created by the shopping cart’s wheels on the parking lot asphalt. “Help me get these in the trunk, and then we’ll talk business.”

Kid Loki clapped his hands in glee and pranced over to the back of the Impala. After a few key-jiggling attempts at getting the trunk open without a fight, the sleek blue metal gave a ka-thunk sound and grated noisily as I opened it, leaving to the eye a beautiful view of a spick-and-span rear compartment.

“You could fit me in here!” Loki said, little green eyes sparkling in awe as he clambered up onto the tailgate.

“Yes, I could. Easily. Now, unless you want to be back there keeping the groceries warm while I drive us to Canada, you’d better scoot and help me get the goods in.”

He just laughed and hopped down to grab a bag and start hauling. I went through a little mental checklist with each bag I grabbed. Milk, applesauce, orange juice - cooler, in the back of the trunk. Good. Green beans, corn, tomatoes. All staples of the Midwest, okay, good. Alright. And nonperishables in the front space of the trunk - graham crackers, peanut butter, raisins, fruit snacks, chips, wheat bread, canned fruit, canned vegetables, and my favorite, licorice candy. I was tempted to have a piece now because Kid was yapping away about being excited to go to Nunavut and I was starting to get a hunger headache, but I decided not to, because I could more easily filch one of his strawberry bon-bons than get that ridiculous licorice package open.

“Now to deliver the mail!” The little raven-haired mischief manager tossed the last bag of groceries in and raced around to his side of the car like his rear end was lit on fire. “Come on, (Y/N), let’s go!”

“Give me a minute,” I shouted from behind the car, and realigned the hood of the trunk so that it would go down and click into the latch smoothly. Once the lid was on tightly and it didn’t wiggle when I shoved it around a little, I heaved a sigh and stepped around to the driver’s side, swinging open the door and slumping into the seat. It felt like I hadn’t been able to sit down for three hours, but I knew that couldn’t have been the case.

I cast a glance at the clock on the dashboard. 12:31 P.M. Well. Apparently I stood corrected.

Loki was shuffling through the envelopes I had yet to send off to pay my mortgage and other assorted bills. I prayed that his hands weren’t too sticky from all the strawberry candies he’d been eating and held out my hand to take them.

“What are these for? They don’t look very official.” His dark eyebrows knit together, trying to puzzle out the simplicity of the envelopes. “And the sticker? Is that for decoration?”

“It’s how they deliver the letter. Kind of like a wax seal. Except I don’t have wax at the ready every time I need to pay something off.” I turned the key in the ignition and the car sputtered for a minute, and then roared to life like a crotchety old man being woken from his afternoon nap. God, I wished I could have an afternoon nap. Loki peered out the window, pressing his nose to the glass, as the Impala peeled out of the parking lot and reeled to one side as I tried to get it down the cursed steep decline at the exit.

“So, then, do you deliver the letter yourself? Do you call a page? Or do they have pages at the ready in this office of post?”

I glanced at him, and then in the rearview mirror, and then to the left and right before I swung my boat of a car out into midday traffic. “You really aren’t from here, are you?”

He looked back at me and blinked, pale face seeming oddly luminescent in the sunshine. “Are you making a joke?”

“Yes,” I said tiredly, giving the Impala enough gas to lurch through the next intersection. “Yes I am. By the way, can I have one of those little strawberry candies? You’ve definitely eaten enough of them and I’m hungry.”

Surprisingly, he gave one up without much of a fight, and carefully unwrapped and fed it to me as I refused to take my hands off the wheel while entering the freeway.

“Thanks,” I mouthed around the strawberry bon-bon, which tasted decent for something that had spent half a day in a seven-year-old’s pocket.

“You are most welcome.” He smiled sweetly and swung his legs back and forth, lightly kicking the underside of the dashboard.

“Okay, here’s the plan, Stan.” I gunned it and made it safely onto the freeway before the acceleration lane cut off, which was a miracle considering most of these idjits were going twenty over the speed limit. The Impala jounced around indignantly before settling into the flow of 70 miles per hour.

“My name’s not Stan. Are you having memory loss?” Loki interrupted innocently enough. I almost laughed.

“No, Kid, it’s just a saying. Anyways. I’m thinking on my feet here. So we’re going to the post office, I’m going to mail a few things… then we’ll head home to get some lunch, and then I’ll take you to Theodora’s Thrift, we’ll go home to grab dinner and lock up the house, and then we’ll be off… to… Nunavut.” Once again, the brick wall of the decision I’d made hit me full force. Was I doing the right thing? Was I really? My palms began to sweat as I considered that this might be the most endangering trip I’d ever been on. I mean, he was my kid now. Technically. Didn’t that mean I could get him some counseling for his delusions of grandeur? Maybe, somehow, he really could have been that bank teller’s grandkid. How would I know? I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t!

But I did know, as soon as I saw that sunny smile on his face, that I’d made the right decision. He gave a little yell of joy and stopped when he saw me looking, but he never dropped that smile, all throughout the post office visit and a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and the applesauce I’d just bought. And he kept it when we went to Theodora’s, too.

Theodora’s shop was one of the most stuffy buildings on the block, but that was only because she didn’t have air conditioning. She relied on a series of industrial-size fans that made the clothes hanging everywhere flutter like dragonfly wings. To be perfectly honest with you, I wished she would have hired a better staff, because the place needed to be cleaned and fixed up - the walls were starting to look dingy and the carpet needed a good shampooing. But otherwise, it smelled and looked like any other thrift store. Which is to say, it smelled like fabric softener and a little bit like cat food, and was absolutely packed with every item you could possibly imagine. Toys, dolls, collector’s items, kitchen supplies, books, candle sets without candles, candles without candle sets, glassware, vases, fake flowers, statues, bicycles, egg timers (for some reason she had about a million of them. I liked to wind them all up to go off at the same time for a little April Fool’s prank), you name it, she probably had it, and if she didn’t—well, she would eventually. The most important thing she had in that building, though, was the clothing. Always comfortable, always freshly laundered, and always at a decent price.

“Hey Tee,” I said to the charming woman behind the counter who was most assuredly in her eighties by now, but still insisted on being in the store every now and again. “Got anything in a size that might fit this guy?”

Loki peeked out from behind me, curiously examining Theodora from afar.

“Well, let me see who you got there.” Theodora came hobbling around the countertop in her usual floral print 50’s decade dress, varicose veins popping out in slight blue contrast to her dark skin. Her smile spread across her face like a chest of bright white pearls cracking open. “Why, hello, young man! Looking for a nice set of clothes-for-a-bargain today?”

“My mom is.” Loki agreed partially and I laughed to myself. “Are you, perchance, related to a Heimdall?”

“A what doll?” Theodora looked confused.

“Heimdall,” Loki continued. “The shining god. He guards the Bifrost.”

Theodora looked at me with an expression that only said ‘lord, (Y/N), what kinda junk you been telling this kid?’

I shrugged helplessly. “Sorry, Tee, he’s hopelessly in love with Norse…” Loki looked at me and my tongue slipped on the mythology part. “...history. Any older clothes you have, I’m sure he’d love a lot more. Something… classy. Like what he’s got on now?” I tried to explain, and as usual, I was mincing words, but Theodora looked like she knew exactly what was needed.

“Come with me, sugar,” She said, leading Loki over to a clothes rack that looked as if it were about to burst with all the pairs of pressed shirts and shorts and pants and sweaters on it. “(Y/N), what is this boy’s name? Here, you want something from the nineties, or…?”

After a brief collecting period of clothes that Loki had taken a liking to, we sent him to the dressing room to complete the ritual of clothes-buying: trying each outfit on and flinging back the dressing room curtain to parade around and see how it felt to wear. It was during this time that the interrogation began.

I was eyeing a pretty peach-hued watch on a stand labeled Vintage Jewelry when Theodora hustled over to me with a bunch of pajama pants in her arms. She just about laid into me right there, I think she would have smacked me a good one had she not been preoccupied with keeping her voice down and the pajama pants from getting too wrinkled.

“(Y/N)!” She hissed. Her frizzy hair wiggled from the ferocity of her whisper. “Why didn’tcha tell me you had a little one? You wouldn’t tell me? Me?”

“Tee, please-”

“Mom, look!” Loki leapt out of the fitting room with a soft green dress shirt and blue jeans on and immediately Theodora and I put on our Looks Great! faces. We hurriedly encouraged him to try on another outfit. Once the curtain went shhhhink! and hit the wall, we resumed our discussion.

“When did you have him? He isn’t that punk’s kid, is he? Can’t be—too old. Or is he?” She squinted at me, looking up and down as if she might notice that I had recently been heavily pregnant or something similar.

“Tee! He’s not my kid—not biologically, at least.” I finally managed to get it all out before she interrupted me. “So he just—he needs me to help him find his real family, that’s all-”

“How about this one?” Loki danced out of the room in a white crew shirt and 60s cut jeans.

“Put the madras shirt on over it, sugar,” called Theodora.

“Oh, that’s right!” Loki disappeared into the little room again and whooped excitedly. “I like this one!”

“Good!” I called. “Try on some more! Tee’s got some pajamas for you, too.”

He poked his head out, black hair already tousled from pulling the t-shirt over his head too roughly. “Some what now?”

“Things you wear when you go to sleep.” I explained hastily. Theodora raised one crinkly grey-haired eyebrow.

“Bed clothes!” cheered Loki, who ran up to Theodora and took a set of pajamas to try on. Shhhink! went the curtain.

“Real family? (Y/N), what in the Sam Hill is going on?”

I told her, in the simplest terms possible, that I was driving Kid to Nunavut to look for his real parents and his brother, and I very nearly had to duck before she slapped me a good one.

“Ever since you was a girl, you couldn’t think straight to save your own skin,” Theodora moaned haggardly, massaging her temple as if this was just one big headache that she could will away.

“I know,” I pleaded. “But you- you should have seen the look on his face when I said I’d take him, he-”

“Oh, child. You’re doing good. You are doing some good.” Theodora smiled toothily despite still looking like she had just come down with a migraine. “That’s what matters, I suppose.”

“I like these too!” Loki called from the fitting room. “They’re nice and soft! Have you got any more?”

“I’ll hand them over, sugar, give me a second,” Theodora responded, and then looked at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read. “You get into trouble, you call me, okay?”

“Trouble—? Theodora. You’re, what, eighty, now? I can’t do that. Not like when I was a kid. I can’t just call you and tell you to come get me. And besides, I’ve got it all planned out.” I almost promised, and then bit my tongue gently. “Well, most of it, anyway. It’s not like I haven’t driven long-distance before.”

At this, she rolled her eyes up to the ceiling and shook her head with a sigh before marching over to hand Loki another set of pajamas. “Well, I know that. But a woman likes to feel needed. You’d know that as well as anybody.”

“Yes,” I agreed quietly, thinking about those long-distance drives.

“So you promise to call me if you get into trouble. Any kind of trouble.” She looked at me pointedly and I hung my head in defeat.

“Yes.”

“Good!” She clapped her hands together and began to rub them together so fast they almost started sizzling with heat. “Hoo, girl, I am excited! Let’s get this show on the road!” Theodora realized the pun she’d just made, and let out a whoopin’ and hollerin’ laugh. That, I thought, was exactly what I loved about Theodora—her big laugh, and how it made both her frizzy grey hair and her belly quiver joyfully at the same time. You just don’t get any more genuine than that kind of a laugh. And when Kid Loki came out of that fitting room in the back hauling the clothes he wanted to wear to the counter, I thought maybe this experience was going to be the most genuine I’d ever had. Or ever would have.  
Just like Theodora, I couldn’t wait.

At this point, you know the drill. Head out to the parking lot, pop the trunk, stow the stuff, pinch and jiggle the lid until it closes appropriately, hop in the Impala and haul back to the old house. Only now, I wouldn’t be seeing this house for a little while. At least three days, since I couldn’t handle a ton of long-distance driving. Going 36 hours straight was out of the question. And the trip was probably going to be even longer, seeing as there were no roads leading to Nunavut, and I didn’t exactly know how to get there.

But we followed the plan that we’d written up (well, mentally) together. Loki wanted to help make dinner, so I let him, and we were discussing how things would go on the road trip while we ate.

“Okay,” He said breathlessly after having gobbled up his portion of black bean salsa. “So we still have to turn off the lights and the water and then lock all the windows and doors and then we can go?”

“I’ve still got some things to gather. It turns out I’m terrible at packing a bag under pressure.” I laughed. I had only put one change of clothing, a pair of pajamas, a hairbrush, deodorant, and my phone charger in that duffel bag, and honestly, I couldn’t have done a better job if I had someone holding a gun to my head. Just scatterbrained by nature, I guess.

Loki laughed, and reached for more of the salsa to eat with the remains of his quesadilla. “And you took all my clothes out of the dryer?”

“Yup,” I nodded at the little green carpet bag sitting by the door. “Got you a toothbrush, too. Not that we’ll have any running water in the Impala, but you know, maybe we’ll get a chance along the way.”

Loki hummed in agreement and took thirds of the salsa.

“You really like that stuff, don’t you?” I asked with amusement, and he just grinned, spooning the last of the black bean mix onto his plate.

There was a moment of silence, and it was pleasantly comfortable.

“So, while I’m driving, you think you can be my GPS?” I asked, and then remembered he wouldn’t know what a GPS was. “I mean, like, can you read a map and tell me which way to go?”

“I think so.” He sat up a little taller, looking awfully proud for someone with a milk mustache. “I used to help my father read maps all the time.”

“Really, now?” I began to clear dishes from the table and started the water for my final batch of hand-washed dishes for a while. “What for?”

“Visiting around Asgard,” the little raven-haired mischief manager said, sneaking the last strawberry bon-bon out from the pocket of his new—well, not quite new, but newly purchased—pajama pants. I’d let him walk around in comfortable clothes for the latter half of the day, seeing as his fancier embroidered ones had to be washed, and seeing as I didn’t want to have to deal with him changing into pajamas in the back of the Impala. It’s a real hassle, changing clothes back there. No, I will not tell you how I know that.

It’s… a long story.

“I see.” The plates clinked merrily together in the dishwater. I smiled. “Where did you guys visit?”

“Oh, just places. To Idunn’s palace to ask for golden apples, to the blacksmith to repair Odinsword, that sort of thing.” He thumped down the hall to the bathroom, and I had a moment of quiet to sort some things out in my head.

Right.

Dishes. Take out the garbage… okay. Today was garbage night anyway, I could just leave my cans out on the curb.

Call in to work. Pull the last string: urgent family matter.

Shut the lights off.

Shut the water off.

Lock the doors.

And that was it.

I followed my internal checklist to completion, drying the last of the dishes and putting them away before dragging the garbage and recycling down to the curb for pickup the following morning. I went about the house locking everything that wasn’t the front door, straightening everything up, and throwing a last few items in the Impala, which had already sunk a considerable half-inch in height from the weight of the things we’d brought along.

Tire pressure, I thought vaguely, and went to rummage through the garage for the compressor.

After running the compressor for a little bit and worried I’d be cussed out by a neighbor for the noise because it was getting to be later in the evening, I stowed it away in a compartment under the passenger seat and went inside to deal with the water and electricity. There I found Kid in the living room, knelt in the middle of the floor, speaking in what sounded like tongues.

I didn’t want to know what kind of black magic nonsense he was up to, so I edged around him and went to use the bathroom myself. When finished, I started flipping off light switches around the house, and went down to the basement with the flashlight to shut off the water main. The stairs complained loudly as I clambered back upstairs, and this time, Kid was nowhere to be seen.

“Oookay,” I said to myself, locking the basement door behind me. “No weird stuff, kiddo. No weird stuff.”

Lastly… work.

I picked up the landline and called my boss, chewing my fingernails nervously and then wrinkling my nose in disgust at the soapy lavender taste. Finally, Stacy picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hey Stace,” I said.

“Oh, (Y/N)! Hey!” She sounded in a good mood, so this was probably the best time to pop the question. “What’s up?”

“Listen, Stacy, I need a few days off of work. There’s… uh… well, there’s a family situation that needs taking care of-” I cursed myself silently for stuttering, but was taken aback by Stacy’s reaction.

“No problem, no problem! That actually works really well. We just got a new chica, a girl called Tems, we’ve been looking for an opportunity to give her a real taste of retail.” Stacy laughed and I thought I heard the television going in the background. “Don’t worry about a thing, hon. How many days are you going to be gone?”

“I’m thinking just four, but I’ll call you if anything changes.” I said, glancing at my watch, as if that would help me decide how many days I’d need to be gone. How many days I’d be in the car.

Stacy’s voice came faintly through the ear piece. “Oh, stop that! Stop that, I’m on the phone!” She giggled in a way that most certainly meant she did not want whoever it was to stop. Then her voice came clearly, definitely talking to me. “Sounds good, hon-bun! I’ll see you then. Give your best to the family for me!” There was a shuffling, like she was covering the mouthpiece, and I rolled my eyes when I heard the deep voice in the background. God. Eugh.

“Goodbye, Stacy,” I said, probably more loudly than was necessary, and she tittered a similar goodbye into the phone before I hung up.

Yeesh. People.

I put the phone down, shut off the kitchen lights, and looked at the time. 7:54 P.M. Nunavut, here we come. Are you ready for us? I asked myself, and then thought again as I was on the front steps, locking the door, are we ready for you?

I stood on the steps a little while, looking around the neighborhood and just wondering when I’d be back again. That feeling had intensified throughout the day. You know the one. The Getting Into Something feeling. I was almost certain that the Something was going to be getting us, though. It made me feel a little funny, like when little kids talk about their nervousness, when they compare it to having butterflies in their stomach. But the sun was just half past the horizon, and I felt comforted by the soft orange light it gave everything. Somewhere, a little kid laughed. Barbecue smoke was rolling through the evening. Adults on the block were chatting somewhere. It was nice, like this. Even the trees seemed to burn beautiful orange and magenta in the sunlight.

Kid was in the car, the back seat this time, curled up in some blankets we’d elected to bring with us. He’d been watching me look around on the front step, and the second we made eye contact, he smiled like I was his real mom. And I smiled back, because that’s what you do when your son smiles at you. That’s what you do for the people you love.

“Alright,” I muttered to myself, hopping down the steps and appreciating the slap! slap! noises my red Converse twins made on the asphalt of the driveway. “Time to get this show on the road.”

I slammed the car door nice and tight behind me, put the key in the ignition, and turned it. The Impala had never roared to life so beautifully.

“Ready?” I asked Loki.

“Ready.” He gave a curt nod like a little army soldier, and rolled the window down to give a little whoop and holler into the gleaming sunset.

“Then let’s go!” I revved the engine and pulled us onto the road, the Impala shaking itself off in preparation for one more trip.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first encounter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy! :)

12:34 A.M.  
Sixty: purring on the interstate.  
Exhaustion: present.  
Loki: asleep.

I sighed, staring at the road in front of me, feeling my eyes dry a little from the current of night air coming in through the driver’s side window. That’s what they tell you in driver’s ed, that fresh air will wake you up. What they don’t tell you is that with fresh air comes the sound of crickets cheeping gently in the nearby cornfields. They also don’t tell you about how all-consuming the nighttime darkness is, and how it makes you want to fall asleep despite knowing you’ll lose control of the car and careen into a ditch. They don’t tell you that the soft glow of your headlights may or may not leave you in a trance…

I snapped back to attention when I felt my right hand graze the side of the steering wheel and renewed my iron grip and white-eyed stare. That settled it. The next exit we came to meant I was pulling into a parking lot to get some shut-eye. Sixty’s tires thundered onwards, and I watched as the white dashed lines slipped past on my left.

Ugh. So soothing. I grit my teeth and sucked in the cool air as sharply as if I were taking a hit of a drug called Wake Me Up Now So That I Don’t Become A Crash Report. Not that I do that frequently, mind you. Not that I do any of this frequently.

Loki turned over in his sleep and nearly fell out of the backseat. I don’t think it would have mattered much if he did, though, seeing as he’d made a little kingdom of blankets and pillows, and there wasn’t much space back there to fall into at all. He snuggled further into the drab blue blanket, who seemed excited to finally get out of the living room.

Sixty’s engine whined, ka-thumped, and settled back into silence. Normally something like that would startle or concern the driver of such an old car, but I took it as its way of saying, “hey, stupid, you’re about to miss that exit”.

I swung into the lane just as the guardrail was coming up and eased off on the gas to approach the intersection at the end of a steepish slope, sheltered on the left by a large hill where the interstate crept up into an overpass. The intersection ahead was crimped into a sort of four-way, with a dip in the center, as if it were at the bottom of an earthenware bowl. It was lit only by a single cold white street lamp. A wash of apprehension entered my body at the sight of it. I couldn’t quite figure out why it made me seize up with anxiousness, but there was something very wrong about the whole situation. It was as picturesque as a horror movie, and about as cliché as one, too. As we approached, I slowed the car to a stop in front of a weathered red octagonal sign that looked like it had seen better days.

Loki rolled over and mumbled something in his sleep. I jumped a little at the noise.

Crickets, I thought to myself, feeling a cold sweat break out on my palms. The crickets are silent. And they really shouldn’t have been. We were still surrounded by tall grass and open fields. With my heart pounding and brain rehearsing every scary story I’d ever heard, I let go of the brake and rolled carefully through the intersection, taking the road straight ahead for the mere fact that it looked much friendlier than the other two options. To the left, the road cut through the hill and ducked under the interstate, and the thought of that short pocket of five seconds in total darkness below the road made the lump of fear in my stomach tighten. To the right, it was wide open, and fresh air could come pouring into the car - but there were dense corn fields on either side. And what every horror movie I’d ever watched told me was to Avoid The Corn At Any Cost.

So, I took the road ahead, and coasted at a good thirty miles an hour for a little ways before I started seeing things. Not big things. Not scary things, per se. Just… things. Shadows, maybe. Except they had a mass to them that I wasn’t willing to question. A rabbit-sized thing, darting across the road. Something shifting in the trees. A darkness that could have been the body of a deer laying by the side of the road, but manifested into something entirely unique and evil when I caught it in my periphery.

“Just a deer,” I muttered to myself. “It’s hick country, they don’t always dress their game, probably just a deer.”

Loki mumbled some more, this time in tongues. I realized he was saying the same thing he had been when I’d locked up the house. Quieter, now, but still the same phrase, repeated over and over.

“Beautiful móðir, bless okkarr heima…”

Eventually, the dark road bent into a curve, and right around the corner the land seemed to burst into life again. Crickets chirped and an owl ‘hoo’ed and dipped into the field on the right to catch something, most likely a mouse. I breathed a sigh of relief as I recognized the familiar shape of a small town up ahead, a cluster of little shack-shapes on the horizon lit by Sixty’s impertinently bright headlights. The nature sounds continued and slowly eased away my spiraling waves of apprehension. It was a matter of minutes before I had the Impala parked in a rest stop lot, next to the wall of a gas station.

I rolled the window down some and reached across the passenger side to do the same so we’d get a little bit more fresh air. The grass behind the gas station rustled keenly in the summer breeze, midnight blue until the starlight hit it in a strange-yet-beautiful streaking way. Arcs of gentle light danced across the rippling strands and reflected moonshine onto the hood of the car. All was calm, even if all was not bright. The owl swooped back into my vision and settled in a tree, munching on a sorrowful little shadow of a mouse as the darkened silhouettes of leaves sashayed around them. I had a fleeting thought about how the land lost color during the night and gained it during the day.

“Or maybe our eyes just don’t see it at night,” I murmured to myself, sliding a blanket out from under Loki. I fell asleep with my seat belt wrapped around my ankle and the median digging into the flesh above my hip.

3:02 AM.  
Sixty: silent as the dead.  
Alertness: one hundred percent.  
Adrenaline: coursing through the bloodstream.  
Loki: sitting upright.

“Mom?” Loki whispered. The leaves continued their rustling outside, slowly and reassuringly, as if trying to lure him into a trap.

Thump. It was soft, but louder than the last time. The car swayed back and forth. Loki flattened himself on the backseat, shivering and hiding under the pile of blankets. He caught sight of her ankle, wrapped in the protective belt of the driver’s seat.

Thump. Louder still. The body in the front stirred and let out a groan.

“Mom!” He whispered more insistently, not willing to let the fright seep into his voice. “(Y/N), wake up! Wake up!”

THUMP. The car rocked onto its left wheels and then fell back onto the right, bouncing resiliently, like a boxer inviting another hit.

“Wake up!” Loki shrieked when he caught sight of the face in the window.

My eyes flew open at the command and immediately I recognized that something was very, very wrong. The car was trembling and everything was silent once again. Wait, scratch that. It was Loki who was trembling, yanking on my shirt and holding me close at the same time, like a monkey trying to climb a tree sideways.

“What is it?” I asked sleepily, and he shook my arm so hard I felt my shoulder pop.

“Get up! Get up get up get up! We have to go, NOW!” He leapt towards the ankle that I’d tangled in the seat belt while trying to get comfortable and started to wrestle with it.

“Okay, kiddo, slow down, what’s going o-”

THUMP. The car wobbled on all fours and there was a sound like fur brushing across the door nearest my head. Loki glanced back and his eyes bugged out of his head, like two pinpoint emeralds of terror. His pointed face was sheet white in the starlight and he nearly snapped my leg in two when he pulled it apart from the fabric entangling it.

I didn’t need to look behind me to know that whatever was rocking the car certainly wasn’t human. Maybe we were so far out in the countryside that it was a bear. I didn’t really know for sure, but I wasn’t going to take a chance on a hungry animal or murderous elk or something else equally horrific. I sat upright and slung the blanket in the passenger seat, instantaneously checking that all doors were locked.

“Roll up that window,” I said to Loki, digging in my jacket pocket for my keys and simultaneously trying to roll up my own.

He obeyed soundlessly and without looking through the glass, staring down at the floor as if eye contact with the thing outside the car meant certain death. And with the way the thing outside smelled, that honestly could have been the case. My nostrils were burning with the stench of something coppery and rotten.

I jammed the key into the ignition and turned it a little too ferociously. The Impala sputtered and gave out after a few clicks.

“Shit,” I muttered as the thing outside thumpTHUMPed on the rear bumper. Loki whimpered nervously and I thought I saw a flicker of green light emerge from his fingertips.

No time to wonder. I tried the ignition again. Again.

THUMPthumpthump-BANG.

Sixty sputtered angrily and backfired, releasing a cloud of black smoke into whatever creature’s face was near the tailpipe. A piercing howl cut through the night and I clapped my hands over my ears. Loki just sat there, shaking like a leaf.

Before the Whatever It Was could cause any more damage to my precious car, I threw the gears into reverse and grit my teeth as I stomped on the gas. I expected to hit whatever it was, yes, but I didn’t realize how big it must have been. It felt like we’d hit a furry wall, and I was cursing up a storm at how many dents I’d have to try to hammer out of the trunk later.

“Just drive,” Loki hollered at the top of his lungs. “Just go. Go!”

I yanked the stick back into drive without question and Sixty ran forward with a force that pressed both of us back into our seats. Just before I hit the road again, I toed the brake pedal anxiously, knowing the taillights would illuminate whatever we’d just hit.

The animal limping to its feet in that lot was… scratch that. It wasn’t an animal. I had no idea what the hell it was. It had arms and legs like a human, but almost as if a potato had grown long, long leg bones and began to use them as stilts. Its eyes were like black holes of terror, not even having the decency to reflect the now insidious starlight. It had no lips, but where the lips were supposed to be, the mouth opened in a seared pucker and had something red smeared around it. I didn’t look any more before punching the gas and tearing down the road at a sharp ninety miles an hour. It was a while before I realized the person screaming was not Loki, but was in fact myself. Loki had entered into his mantra long ago.

“Beautiful móðir, bless okkarr heima. Beautiful móðir, bless okkarr heima. Beautiful móðir, bless okkarr heima…”

The countryside blurred before my eyes and I barely had the nerve to slow down before daybreak came. When the sun started peeking over the horizon, and Loki was staring, still pale, into the windshield, I slowed the car down to an easy 40. We were approaching a bigger town, this time. One that was already starting to awaken.

I rolled my window down about a half-inch and caught the scent of laundry detergent on the breeze. The dashboard told me it was 6:01 in the morning, and the church bells that began to chime belatedly told me about the same. I slowed down even further and made sure there were people on the sidewalks in town before pulling the car into a Walmart parking lot and coming to a rest in the furthest parking space available. Sixty rumbled and the engine cut as I took the key out and returned it to the safety of my pocket.

The sigh I let out of my lungs wasn’t one of relief, exactly, more of a “now I can sleep in peace” sigh. I turned to Loki. He stared back at me with those terrified green eyes.

I paused before speaking. “We’re okay now.”

He looked out the window, around at all the shops in the area. I followed his gaze and caught sight of a little old lady crossing the street away from us. She had a walker, brand new and pearly pink.

“Yes,” he said in a hollow tone.

“We’re safe.”

“Yes.”

“Are you okay?”

A pause on his end this time. He turned shakily back to me. “I just want to go to sleep now.”

I felt the weight of the bags beneath my eyes increase monumentally. “Me too, Kid. Me too.”

We both sat there, unmoving.

“Are you okay?” He whispered.

“I think so.” I replied. “I’m supposed to be a mom, you know. Usually moms are always okay, no matter what.”

“You’re an unusual mom,” he said, finding an inkling of a smile to put on his face. I smiled back in earnest and tucked the drab blue blanket around him once more.  
“Yeah, but I’m okay. I’m the best unusual mom, don’t you think?”  
Kid Loki giggled as I swept him up once more and placed him gently in the backseat. A strange, thoughtful look came over his face as I crawled over the median between the two front seats to join him in his little blanket kingdom.  
“Do blessings work on Earth?”

I shifted and rearranged the pillows on my side so that they aligned with the curve of my spine. “I… don’t really know. I’m not a super religious person. Maybe they do. I think in certain cases they might. Kind of like miracles.” I looked at him. “Or coincidences.”

He was silent for a moment. A conclusion dawned on me like the sun that was slowly-but-surely coming up and chasing all the horrors of the night away. “Was that what you were chanting a while back?”

He nodded, little raven curls bouncing up and down. “It’s my mother’s blessing. I used it on the house so that it would be protected. And I tried to use it on Sixty, but…” Loki shrunk back into the blanket and the lavender comforter he’d snuck into the car from atop my bed. “I don’t think it works on cars. I don’t have a carriage blessing, either.”

I nodded. “Well, that’s okay. Sixty’s its own blessing. You’d be surprised at how often little miracles happen with this hunk-of-junk.”

I laid my head down on the comfiest pillow I could find, and closed my eyes. Sleep didn’t come immediately. In fact, I had a hard time keeping my eyes closed at all. The sunlight was warm and soothing, but that face-  
-I just kept seeing it. The red smears. Dark eyes.

My eyelids twitched as I fought to get the rest I needed. The adrenaline still hadn’t worn off completely - I could feel the aftershocks making me hyper-aware of everything around us. The church bells were still going. Somebody slammed their trunk. A lady, somewhere, was talking on the telephone. A car thrummed down the road, sounding a lot smoother than the one we were in.

Loki sighed softly and burrowed further into the blanket pile. I felt something being placed in my hand, and opened one eye.

“Just to keep you safe,” he said quickly.

I held his small hand tighter in my palm and fell back asleep with a smile.

It must have been interesting, being in that parking lot, seeing two sleep-rumpled people emerge from an old beat-up car with dents and scratches on every surface. Especially considering that one of them was a child, and the other could only be described as a hopeless case with a windbreaker and red shoes. Maybe the hammering and cussing at the dents in the trunk scared them off. Maybe we looked like homeless people. Maybe Loki had the distinct profile of a kid who asked “are we there yet?” a billion times in one minute. In any case, people gave us a wide, wide berth as we stepped into the Walmart.

I brought Loki with me to the women’s restroom, where the avoidance continued. The worst part was probably when I had to explain the lock on the stall door to him with another woman standing nearby, judging whether or not she should risk any social interaction.

“Is it a bar or does it look kinda like a circle?” I asked, lowering my voice slightly and glancing apologetically at the woman, who was starting to look as if she wished she were literally anywhere else.

“Circle,” answered Loki.

“Okay, does the circle have a little crossbar on it, like the deadbolt at home?”

“No,” came the answer. “I think the circle’s gone, actually.”

I sighed. “You know what, I’ll just hold the door closed.” I glanced again at the woman. “Sorry about this.”

“Oh, it’s… fine,” She said hesitantly. I didn’t feel like I’d won her trust, exactly, but it was a step past the whole “how fast can I run and is it fast enough to get away from her and her kid” stage.

“Who’s that?” Loki shouted. The woman winced, itching behind her ear awkwardly. Her hair was neatly combed in a bob. Dark red. I liked it a lot.

“Why don’t you hurry up and get out here to wash your hands and you’ll see?” I suggested in the friendliest tone I could muster. The woman looked very much like she would rather be alone in the bathroom.

“I’m getting, I’m getting,” Loki grumbled and I let go of the door just as he came out, striding forward to shove his hands in the sink and find out what kind of scent the soap here had.

The woman coughed.

“All yours,” I said, and could have smacked myself for it, knowing the lock didn’t work.

“Thank… you.” She spoke so unsurely of herself one could have figured she had a pretty bad stutter.

“Oh, wait.” I took a look at the lock on the inside of the door and noted that the circle-type lock had been, at some point, smashed out of the surrounding plastic. But that was no problem.

“What are you…?” The woman sounded a cross between curious and indignant that I would further wreck her peaceful visit to the lavatory, but I showed her the hairpin I’d pulled out.

“Just use it like a little bar. It’s the right size.” I showed her where the indent of the circle had a hole in the side that coincided with the other side of the stall. “Shove it through the little space when it’s closed and it should stick just fine.” I paused. “Or I can hold the door for you.”

She blinked, took the hairpin, and entered the stall to try it for herself. I heard a little laugh. “Well, miss, you certainly are ingenious!”

“Thanks,” I said. “You can keep the pin, if you like.”

Loki turned to me with a mound of foaming soap in his hands. “Mom, look! It’s so soft! And it smells like roses!”

“Yeah, well. The cherry stuff is better. Hurry up so we can grab breakfast, okay?”

Loki stuck his tongue out at me and got to scrubbing, still in awe at the foam soap that poured from the dispenser.

Eventually it was my turn in the broken stall. The pin held up quite well under pressure, actually. I was surprised at how sturdy it seemed, and I decided to leave it for the employees. Another rule of thumb: once a hairpin has touched any surface in a public bathroom, it’s no longer yours. Trust me - you wouldn’t want it anyway.

While rinsing soap off and shaking my hands dry, I pondered the concept of breakfast. We had snacks aplenty in the car, that much was true. And I did have to take another good look at the damage the Whatever It Was did to my car. Loki and his new friend were getting right along, it seemed, and we walked out of the building as a trio. I tossed the keys to Kid Loki as we neared the Impala and told him to see if he could figure out the trunk. Eagerly, he unlocked it, and began the process of gentle jiggling and sweet-talking the car.

“Is he yours?” The woman asked as she smiled and tucked a stray piece of thick, dark red hair behind her ear.

“Yup.” I was surprised at how easily the answer came to me. “I guess you could say that.”

“Guess?”

“Well, you know. Adoption.” I smiled at her. “Other parents are stuck with their kids. I chose mine.”

She let out a laugh and clutched her purse to keep from dropping it, only to laugh harder when she saw Loki wrangling the hood and presumably cussing in tongues, trying to get it to pop open without causing further damage. “He’s just wonderful. So polite, too.”

“Well, thanks.” I wasn’t sure that I should be taking ownership of that kind of thing, since I really had no hand in creating him, biologically or socially. “He’s a good kid.”

“Yes. He reminds me of someone, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.” She mused aloud. I wasn’t paying too much attention, and yelled for Loki to quit trying to break his arm on the trunk hatch and just press the sides in a little.

“I’m trying,” He said, pressing a little harder. The trunk lid finally popped and lightly hit his chin, making him let go of the car and stumble back in shock.

The woman was nearly in tears laughing. “Oh, you two are just so entertaining. Well. Thank you for making my day.” She smiled even wider and I couldn’t even catch a glimpse of the avoidance she’d clearly felt earlier. It was almost too good to be true. “I ought to be going now, got a big bake sale down at the church today. But good luck going to Nunavut. I’m sure he’ll love it. You know, all kids want to do is go to Disneyland nowadays, but I’m glad he’s more…” She searched for a word, and found it. Her dark eyes lit up happily. “He’s more cultured! That’s it. Well, well.” She laughed again. “You two have a very nice day.”

And off she went across the parking lot to her own car, a Honda Accord of perhaps 2011.

“Hm,” I said aloud, and turned to Kid, who was sitting on the tailgate, waiting for the breakfast command.

“What are we having?” He asked.

“Bottled Lipton sweet tea and graham crackers with peanut butter and raisins. And if you’re hungry after that, I think I know a place where we can swing by for a donut.” I pulled the cooler out of the recesses of the trunk. “What kind of charm have you been levying over these strangers?”

“Not much.” He said nonchalantly, a tone which completely contradicted his excited action of tearing open the graham cracker package as if the crackers themselves were made of gold. “Just enough so that you don’t get, you know, questioned. So that people like us enough to help us.” He looked up at me and grinned. “It will be of use eventually.”

“Okay, little prince, whatever you say,” I muttered, shaking my head and smiling. “Grab a butter knife from the bag and let’s get eating.”

So, maybe it wasn’t the world’s most delicious breakfast. To which I would say, what is? But even after Loki spat out his sweet tea with the claim that it “wasn’t sweet in the slightest” and decided also that he didn’t like raisins, we did manage to have a good time sitting on the tailgate, munching on our respective breakfasts. He liked graham crackers and peanut butter just fine, but after catching sight of a big, red, good ol’ round tomato, he decided that that was to be the second part of his breakfast.

“You’re an interesting one, aren’t you?” I asked as he bit into the tomato like it was an apple, red juice running down his chin.

“Yesh,” He said with his mouth full. This was the result of a manner I had unfortunately not been able to uphold, because although it is polite not to talk with your mouth full, it’s also less efficient. “I am. How many hours left?”

“Well, we got a little sidetracked after our demon run. I was doing ninety for about three hours, which isn’t good if you’re not in the direction you want to be going. Fortunately for us, I think the interstate is nearby, we haven’t strayed too far from the mark.” I shaded my eyes and looked for a sign that might indicate the name of the town we were in, but I couldn’t see one.

“If you’re looking for a sign, this place is called Liberty.” Loki licked his tomato-y fingers clean. “I saw it on the way in. ‘Liberty, land of the free, home of the brave’.” He looked up at me with a smug grin. “Guess everywhere else is home of the cowards, huh?”

“Yeah, dork. That ‘everywhere else’ includes Asgard.” I closed the graham cracker and raisin containers and stowed them back in their shopping bags. “Now, where’d you put that map I gave you?”

“In the hull of the car.”

I gave him a questioning look. “The dashboard?”

“That too,” he said, and plucked a bottle of water from the cooler to wash down the rest of the tomato with.

Looking at the map, I felt kind of lost. Well. That was an understatement. Ever since I was a kid, people referred to me as being “directionally challenged”. It stopped being insulting after the time I tried to tell Theodora how to get to my mom’s house from her shop and she just looked at me like she didn’t know what the hell I was saying. I came to realize that I, too, didn’t know what I was saying, and I understood that it was just one of my weaknesses: not being able to read maps.

At least this one was easier to understand. It was printed in simple colors; blue for waterways, green for parks, and beige for roadways. I followed the interstate north with my fingertip until I couldn’t figure out where we were, which didn’t take too long.

By this time, Loki was leaning over my shoulder, glancing between me and the map and then from the map to me and back again. If you’ve ever had someone read over your shoulder and then ask if you can hurry up and turn the page, this was exactly what that’s like.

“What?” I snapped, probably a little too forcefully.

Loki just pointed to the little label that read “LIBERTY”.

I sighed, berated myself, and thanked him. We were actually about 110 miles out from where we needed to be, which wasn’t great, but was still better than, say, 500 miles. Silver linings, you know.

“So…?” Loki wheedled. “Hours? Count?”

“God, I just don’t know. I don’t know. Going seventy miles an hour, which most interstates allow, we’d cover lost distance in…” Another thing that was not one of my strong suits: doing mental math. Argh. “Just above an hour and a half. And following this way, I’d say we have a good twenty hours left, assuming we don’t attract any more demons or take any wrong turns.” I looked him straight in the eye. “And with that we have to stop for exercise, lunch and bathroom breaks, and to sleep. Don’t get your hopes up too fast. These things do take time.”

“I know that,” Loki said, seeming mildly insulted. “I was just wondering.”

“Well, good.” I tousled his black hair and smiled. “How about that donut?”

“Don’t get that icing on the seat,” I spoke up to Kid Loki, who was eagerly chowing down on a giant lemon poppyseed muffin that our friend the woman-in-the-bathroom (whose name I regretted not asking for) had bestowed upon him, free of purchase, in the church lot. I myself obtained a donut which had a light strawberry flavor with jam in the middle. It was a good day to have donuts, I think. The pigeons that came descending upon the bakery stand seemed to agree.

I set my donut down on the median and handed Loki a napkin before pulling the Impala out of the lot and back on the main road.

“Turn right,” said my little GPS, mouth munching away and nose buried in the map. When completely unfolded, the darned thing just about covered him like one of the blankets we had in the back. I tried my best not to laugh, because he was really proud of being a navigator.

“Aye aye, Cap’n.” I slowly reeled Sixty to the right and we were off, once again, on our journey. “How long until the Big Road?”

“A little ways,” he answered. “Look for a Maple Street, and when you see it, cross it, and then you’ll be on Liberty Boulevard. You’ll then see a Rushford Avenue. Take the road to the right…” He buried his face further into the thin paper and I could picture his little dark eyebrows knitting together in confusion. “An… exit… and then you’ll be back on the Big Road.”

“Maple Street, you say?” I noticed a green sign labeled as such on the sad excuse for a street in front of me.

“Yes, just cross through the intersection.”

There was a moment of silence. Loki studied the map. I yawned, and got to my usual mental exercise of questioning my abilities as a functioning adult and wishing I’d gotten more sleep last night.

I thought about what we’d seen at the rest stop. I… really didn’t know what to think of it. Just picturing that face again sent shivers all down my spine. It was just grotesque, in the weirdest of imaginable ways. The Whatever It Was was certainly not a deer, nor a human. I didn’t know what to call it, and I certainly didn’t want to be the one who gave it a name, like victims often end up doing. And yet, there was something I knew in the back of my mind that just wouldn’t let go of that image, of that feeling. The prey feeling. I knew it well, but this was different. This wasn’t a lock-your-car-doors, carry-your-pepper-spray kind of prey feeling. It wasn’t even a buy-a-deadbolt-and-a-chain-in-case  
-he-comes-back feeling. It was the feeling…

“There’s the interstate,” Loki chimed.

I put on my blinker and Sixty lunged forward onto the open road.

...it was the primal feeling of being stalked. No more rough city streets or blinding white lights to save you. No safety in another human’s gaze or grasp. No closeness of buildings whose obscure, opaque oblivions you could hope to escape into. This was out in the country. Even in the jungle, there were more places to hide. Here, there was only you, the sky, the ground, and whatever was hunting you. And the image of the Whatever It Was soon had me twitching my nose like a field mouse.

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

I sneezed loudly and Loki mumbled something in tongues before handing me one of the icing-covered napkins.

“Thanks,” I said, and blew my nose. Even though I was exhaling, I somehow still ended up with the faint lemony scent in my lungs. I kind of wished I’d gotten one of those muffins.

“You are most welcome.” Loki replied and went back to staring intensely at the map.

I blurted it out before I could stop myself. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?” He asked, confused.

“Look at everything like you’ve got to memorize it.” I answered, already feeling oddly intrusive, but still trying to keep my mind off the horror at the rest stop.

“Like what?” Kid Loki queried further, still glued to the map like it was his lifeline.

“The map. The camera. The computer. And that thing you were reading, the manual for my car, which I’ve never been able to find.”

He snapped his fingers and a worn little book appeared in my lap, labeled 1967 Chevrolet - Owner’s Guide. “There you go.”

“But why do you do that?”

“Because those things are interesting to me.” He said shortly, indicating that the conversation was going to end there and that was that.

“Okay.” I complied, and on we drove.

There wasn’t a lot to say about the next hour and a half. Loki fell asleep a couple of times, and I thought maybe we should pull over soon to get dressed at a gas station or something. I cursed myself for forgetting to brush my teeth, but felt a tiny bit better knowing that Loki was right there with me; and quite honestly, if Asgard was really a thing of Old Norse mythology or history, I couldn’t be positive that they had toothbrushes back home. The thought made me shudder and silently thank my parents for forcing me to brush twice a day.

I thought a lot about the previous road trips I’d taken, too. Always to meet him, the one Theodora referred to most often as Punk and a variety of other things that would be considered vile to say aloud in a public space. It’s funny, the things you think about in hindsight. Never once did he want to come meet me anywhere - I was the one who had to do all the driving. That was nice, because it meant I got the chance to show off my car, which had been brand new at the time - well, as “new” as refurbished will get. And I liked that a lot. The air would always be smoky back there by the lake, and his friends knew how to laugh. I used to be able to arm wrestle and beat them all, one at a time, but I never could get him because he was left-handed and strong. Days were so colorful, back then. The sunsets there were majestic like somebody was up on a cloud painting the sky to perfection. They were always different, but always beautiful. He and I would sit on the hood of the Impala and just watch the sun set over the lake, and I thought it was the happiest I could ever be. I think it must have been. The sky was streaked with the prettiest mix of feather blue and golden orange, with pink clouds like cotton candy floating whichever way they pleased. Funny. It had always seemed like they stopped in time for the sunset, just so I could have that perfect picturesque moment. But colors weren’t always good.

I glanced over at Loki, who had turned away from me and was quietly sleeping off the rest of the hours we’d missed.

Colors, in cases like those sunsets, could be very nice. His eyes were a beautiful color. And the lipstick I used to wear when I went to see him was a nice color, too. I used to judge everything by its hues and shades. If a dress was sunny yellow, I bought it. If a cake was red like velvet, I ate it. If a bottle was labeled green tea, I’d drink it. If a 1967 Chevrolet Impala was blue, I asked for the keys to drive it.

My color-based judgments came to a halt when I saw her through the window. I’d driven over the state line in a heap of worry because he hadn’t answered my messages or calls for a few days, bordering on a week, and I couldn’t figure out where he’d gone. He left a mess behind in his apartment, ever the unlocked-door type of unruly bastard, and I assumed the worst, knowing we both weren’t exactly of “sound mind”. I could have kicked myself for driving to that stupid place. The only thing I was glad for in that moment was that his friends weren’t there, but the air was smoky, and it had that disgusting hashish taste, mixed with the sweet nicotine he loved. I think I knew what was coming because I didn’t bother to slam the car door or knock or anything. I just went to the nearest window in his cabin to see.

It was all yellow, my favorite color. He had one incandescent bulb screwed into the light fixture. I thought about how nice those bedsheets were when I bought them as I cupped my hands around my eyes and watched them roll around on that bed. She had plum colored lipstick and soft blonde hair, and while I was seething and trying to put distance between myself and the situation, pretending for a moment that I didn’t love him and that I was just a Peeping Tom, I looked at her hard. I knew everything about her at that exact moment. She liked Blink-182 and she straightened her hair before she came over even though she knew he was going to muss it up. She had green eyes and she wore black Converse and she liked big winged eyeliner and swung her hips when she danced, and she had a nice car and could make his friends laugh and liked to smoke hash and to cook, too. And I knew another thing.

Apparently, she liked to fuck.

Because I am the way I am, I quietly marched to my car, and drove back to the city. I went to Walmart and bought some baking ingredients to make a kickass cake. I sat in my Impala and cried after the cashier had the decency to ask if I was okay because I was pale and shaking like a leaf. And after I was finished crying, I went back to his apartment and made a cake and deliberated very seriously.

When he walked in the door, I was eating a slice of cinnamon goodness, sitting on the couch, giggling to myself as some cartoon played on his little television. I looked up and asked if he would like a slice and damn if I didn’t deserve an Oscar when I popped up and said, “Well, nice of you to introduce me to her, huh?”

I walked over there and shook her hand and felt really good when she smiled at me and averted her eyes and knew what she’d done.

“Want some cake? Fresh out of the oven. Come onnn, I know you want some!” I turned up the friendliness a little, but not too much. He was clueless. She was clueless. I was exhilarated.

“Hell yeah!” He grinned boldly and served himself a slice. I grabbed a small plate and before Abigail could say anything more about “oh no I’m actually on a little bit of a diet see I’m trying to lose weight-”, I slapped a piece down in front of her and clapped my hands on my thighs with a wild grin on my face.

“Oh, a little slice of the good stuff never hurts. Trust me, babe, it’s got cinnamon, and cinnamon will help ya burn calories.”

He was already laid back on the couch, munching on a slice of cake as big as a third of the pan. I envied the relaxation he clearly had.

Abigail gulped and smiled weakly. “O...kay, if you say so.”

I waited until she ate the whole thing, and in the meantime, I finished up my cake. The energy in the room could be described best as apprehensive, but that was because Abigail was so anxious. I thought she must have had trouble swallowing, so I offered her a glass of milk eagerly.

“Oh, no, no thank you. I’m lactose sensitive.” She ducked her head almost shamefully and I smiled to myself, slipping the carton back into the fridge.

“Just fine by me, Ab. Don’t worry about a thing.” I chimed, and then looked at him. “Hey, boy, how about an arm wrestling match before I go home?”

“Already?” He asked. “You just got here. And besides, you know we’re an even match.”

Oh, it’s about to get a lot more even than that, I thought to myself.

“Yeah, well. Clock’s a-tickin’ and I got to be getting back to my job over yonder. Gimme one last shot.” I said in my goofiest friendly tone, and he sighed with a smile.

“Alright. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He put his left elbow on the coffee table. I met it with my nondominant hand and he counted down from three. We struggled. Abigail watched with big eyes like a deer caught in the headlights.

Well, what can I expect? He was right. We were evenly matched, and evenly stubborn. It was five minutes until I could feel a muscle beginning to pull.

“Gonna give up yet?” He asked, gritting his teeth in another stupid smile.

I ignored him and turned to the thin blonde shadow next to me. “Hey Abigail, what’s your favorite band?”

“...Blink-182?” She answered.

I slammed his hand down on the coffee table so hard the room rang and the glass top split. I’m sure he asked me what the fuck I thought I was doing, but he couldn’t get half of that sentence out before I backhanded him wickedly across the face.

“I’m not as dumb as I look, jackass,” I spat, and turned to Abigail, who was all big-eyes winged-eyeliner now. I smiled sweetly. “And what model of car do you own?”

Her voice shook as she answered. “I-It’s a-a 1966 S-sting Ray? A Ch-chevy?”

I let my fist fly into the soft hollow that was her stomach and I swore I punched straight through to her spine. My knuckles still had the feel of the muscle below her slinky tank top fabric on them as I walked out the door. In the background, I heard him screaming angrily, and after a moment, she retched and spewed that slice of cake right back up. I smiled satisfactorily and kissed the hand I’d hit her with, sprinting out to the street and gunning Sixty all the way home.

But nothing could stop me from hating the colors I’d seen. Even yellow.

I tried. I tried forever to forgive her, to forgive him, to forget, to move on, to stop crying in the shower, to forget everything he’d ever given me or taught me or let me feel. I told myself he was a cheater and a scumbag and a whore and whatever else I could think of that made me feel a little bit better in a blur of days that were all grey because now I had nothing. And even a lying, cheating scumbag whore was better than nothing.

At least, it was until I found Loki. And that was when I got into something; something big, as I usually do. Something involving somebody that I’d grown very much to care about, somebody I was scared to lose.

Loki stirred in his sleep and I realized with a little snap back to reality - Eminem style, of course - that we’d driven much farther than I intended. It was twelve-thirty in the afternoon and we’d been going for about three and a half hours on the interstate, which was becoming a little more populated. A blue sign up ahead indicated that a city was coming up. Nothing notable, exactly, I’m sure there could have been a dozen Pine Citys in the whole of the States. But this one had a good restaurant I knew of, and a place where we could shower and brush our teeth after a good meal. And, as the brown sign following the blue one said, it also had a regional trail.

We definitely need to stretch, I thought to myself as I took the nearest exit onto the populated highway. I reached out for another icing-stained napkin and tried to scrub the tears out of my eyes, but the end result was just me crying more. News flash, guys, don’t put lemon juice in any form anywhere near your eyeballs. It burns.

Loki woke up to me cursing softly and rubbed his eyes. I envied the ease with which he could do so and tried to keep my own open as I blearily navigated the streets. I rolled down my window all the way, hoping the fresh air would help, but it pretty much made things worse.

“Hey,” came a voice from the car stopped next to us.

I looked over at a shape which appeared to be a young man in a red shirt, although I couldn’t see that well. “Huh?”

“You okay?” He asked. “The light’s green.”

“Oh God,” I muttered to myself, opening my eyes even wider and blinking like crazy to get the tears out of the way. “Yeah, I’m good. Thanks.”

Sixty snorted in amusement and allowed me to guide us through the intersection and into the parking lot of a Tobie’s Diner.

“What happened to you?” Loki asked in amazement. “Your eyes are so red! Here, here, take this one.” He held out a clean napkin and I wiped my eyes and fanned them wildly with my hand.

I thanked him. “Don’t worry, just allergies.”

He nodded hesitantly as if he wasn’t sure he understood, but waited patiently while I scrubbed at my face and tried to at least appear presentable for our short luncheon.

Once we were out of the car and striding across the black, pitted-asphalt parking lot, I realized how long it had been since I’d stretched my legs properly. And Loki, too, for that matter. While I was walking slowly because my knees were stiff, Loki was hopping, skipping and jumping around like a little rambunctious mischief-manager ready to be the biggest handful ever seen at a public establishment. I groaned internally and prayed with a certain soulful might to the high blue sky that he wouldn’t attract unwanted attention.

In hindsight, I really should have said any attention.

As we were approaching the building, the glass doors swung open and out came a cute old couple in their sixties or seventies. I bowed my head gratefully as the husband held the door open for us and I ushered Loki inside, who was sniffing the air like a bloodhound. The husband and his wife gave us a once over, and I think we must have been the topic of after-lunch conversation for their short constitutional across the car lot.

“What are you doing?” I asked, pulling open the second internal door, allowing the loud chatter from the restaurant to seep into the little foyer. Loki sniffed harder.

“I smell wheat!” He exclaimed, and rushed forward into the building. I caught the back of his pajama shirt before he went sprawling into the path of a waiter, and was reminded that we needed a change of clothes after this lovely meal.

“What does wheat have to do with anything?” No answer; he was too excited. About what, though, I couldn’t be sure. I began my ritual of sighing deeply as, eyes aglow with enthusiasm, Kid approached the willowy woman behind the front counter.

“Hi,” he said to the hostess, who looked a little harried. Tobie’s was full to the brim, and us coming in was probably the little top-off on the glass that would send the whole thing crashing to the ground. But Loki was indeed practicing his charm, and instead of ignoring or otherwise deflecting interaction with him, she smiled and bent down to talk.

“Hello there, young man! What can I do for you?”

“My mom and I need a table to eat at for lunch.” He blinked his gypsy-green eyes cutely and I swore I saw the exact moment the hostess fell in love.

“Aww, of course, dearest. This way.” She smiled at us both and beckoned with an almost-skeletal finger as she walked to the back of the restaurant, where we promptly sat down at a tiny, cramped table near a window.

“Thanks,” I said, but the hostess didn’t seem to hear me.

“Thank you,” Loki chimed, and she tittered joyfully.

“Of course, of course! I’ll be back in a bit with your drinks.” She walked away and then swung back around, making her black skirt fly outwards. “I almost forgot! What did you say you wanted?”

“Ale!” Loki cheered.

I gave him a look. “Ginger ale, please.”

“Right, right,” The hostess in black laughed. “And for Mom?”

“I’ll just have water, thanks.” I smiled as graciously as I could after being mentally drained from the drive and accompanying memories.

“Sounds great!” She chirruped and waltzed away, but not before leaving two large grimy menus with us. The size of the things was comical; they just about covered the entire table. I picked mine up, trying to use the smallest amount of surface area on my hand as possible, and immediately began searching for my favorite food. Mom needed a break from snack foods and bottled tea.

“(Y/N), where is the bathroom?” Loki twisted around in his seat and I mirrored him, scanning the restaurant for a clue.

“Over there. You see it?” I pointed to the far corner.

“Yeah. I’ll be right back.” He was off like a bullet, leaving me alone with my thoughts once more.

Not only did Mom need a break from snack foods, she needed a break from reality.

I almost put my head down on the table, but I thought twice about how… akin to the menus’ grime it might be, and instead buried my face in my hands. Doubt was coming in strong waves, backed by tsunami-like winds. I raked my fingers through my hair and considered, very seriously, that I might be crazy, that I might be taking advantage of a seven-year-old who didn’t know any better, or who was as delusional as I was. The words I had heard since I met the Punk echoed raucously inside of my skull and I hoped to God the hostess would come back soon. I needed that water. I needed to feel something other than-

Don’t be such a coward.

Damn, where was that water?

“Hey,” said a voice that I’d heard before and didn’t immediately recognize.

I peeked through my hands at the person kneeling next to my table. I wondered how I looked. Was my hair frizzy? Did I forget to wipe my makeup off a few days ago and now I looked like the Grudge? I was in my pajamas. Did that matter?

Don’t be such a coward.

“Hey,” I choked out at the young man in a faded red shirt in front of me.

“I seen you with that kid.” He jerked his head back and to the right, where the restrooms laid in a dingy corner. I hadn’t realized I’d been counting the seconds, silently, that Kid was away. “Your son, right?”

Don’t be such a coward.

I felt my face harden into a solid wall. “What does it matter to you?”

He shrunk backwards a little, but I could see nothing but concern in his eyes. Warm eyes. Dark brown. “Oh, now, don’t worry, Missus, I’m not trying anything. I just wanted to make sure you was okay. Seeing as you got all that…” He paused momentarily and flicked a strand of hay-colored hair out of his face. “Well, that junk in the back of that ‘mpala makes me think maybe y’all don’t have a home.” Shyly, Red Shirt turned his face away to avoid my glare. “I dunno. I’m prolly being stupid, as usual for a Sunday. But don’t worry. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

He stood up and stuck his hand out. I stared. He had a broad, flat palm with a few indentations and scar patterns in it. I swallowed.

Don’t be a coward.

“Name’s Mitch Duncan,” Mitch said, blinking his dark chocolate eyes sweetly. “Local handyman, animal whisperer, and senseless do-gooder. I hope you can forgive me for my intrusiveness.”

Leaning forward without the slightest shift in expression (that I could manage, at least), I shook his hand firmly.

“Nice to meet you, Mitch, I’m (Y/N). And thank you for checking in, but Kid and I-”

“Who’s that?” Loki asked incredulously, staring at our joined hands as if catching us in some sort of sinful act.

Before I could say anything, Mitch had knelt down again and was introducing himself to Loki. I don’t think the little mischief-maker had to charm him much, though. Mitch had his own way about him and I was very sorry that I immediately liked him so much.

“Here’s your water!” chirped the hostess, back with our drinks. “And here’s your ginger ale! I’ll send a waiter over if you’re ready to order!”

I glanced at Loki and he nodded.

“We’re ready,” I informed her, and she nodded enthusiastically like a bobblehead.

Mitch stood up once more, leaning on the table for support. I noticed one of his knees listing to the side a little, like he had a joint that was a little too flexible, or just not popped back into place. Interesting.

“Well, thank you, Missus (Y/N) and Loki.” He smiled genuinely and tipped an invisible hat - I imagined it was something like a white Stetson. “I’ll be going back to my meal now. Thank you for entertaining my… curious whim.” The smile widened, showing off a clean space where his canine was missing, and the straight white teeth all around it. When he left, I cast a glance at Loki, who was sniffing the air again as if he were smelling the sweetest thing on Earth.

“What are you doing that for?” I asked, and he sighed happily and slid into his chair to get a sip from the kid-sized ginger ale he’d ordered.

“Wheat,” he said dreamily. “Sif smells like wheat.”

I raised an eyebrow in interest and tried to put everything aside for the moment. “And who is this Sif character?”

“She’s a lady. A real lady. And she’s the goddess of the harvest.” His nimble fingers curled around the glass and he took another steady sip. “She smells like wheat and fresh baked bread, all the time. It’s really nice.”

“So… do you go around sniffing all the girls you like?” I could feel my shoulders shaking a little with barely-concealed laughter. Boys will be boys, but I mean, this was next level.

“No.” Loki said defensively. “I don’t sniff her, she just has a fragrance. A shroud around her, I guess. She just smells good. All the time.” He waved his hands in the air, dangerously close to the cup of ginger ale which was closer to the edge of the table than I would have liked. “It’s like when you bake bread. The smell fills the house. And it is a magnificent smell.” He sat back in his chair and his eyebrows unknitted themselves from their previously-distressed state. “She will be my wife someday.”

“Only if she wants to,” I laughed to myself, and noticed a server coming our way. 

“Why shouldn’t she?” He asked honestly, but before I could say anything we had a large woman taking up the rest of our space.

Her name tag, which was so close it was practically pressed into my right cheekbone, read ROSIE. Just like that, in all caps. And that was the way she spoke, too.

“WHAT CAN I GET YOU TODAY, YOUNG MAN?” She bellowed cheerfully. I heard a slight ringing in my ear.

“A peanut butter and jelly sandwich sounds delightful!” He shouted back. “I would like a side of the sauce of apples and also some extra wheat bread please!”

“SOUNDS GOOD, HONEY!” She turned to me, and in my periphery, I could see her springy hair bouncing just over her eyeglasses. “AND FOR YOU, MA’AM?”

I promptly ordered the best thing I could find on the menu to suit my tastes and held my breath as ROSIE said she’d be back with the food soon. Not that holding my breath would have spared my eardrums any unnecessary pain, but, you know. Not everything a human does is logical to a fault.

“I like her,” Loki giggled.

I was about to sigh a miserable sigh, but something caught me. To this day, I’ll never know what it was. The next best thing I can think of is the word “spontaneity”. Instead of commencing with the questioning and the berating and the consideration of cowardice and turning tail and running any longer, I decided, what the hell. You can always run forward.

“Tell me more about this Sif,” I said, after pounding about a third of my glass of water, which was a bad idea when you like your insides to feel relatively warm. I thought I might have swallowed an ice cube whole.

“Well…” Loki started off, a child-crush gleam in his cat-hued eyes.

Forty-seven minutes later, we were back in the Impala, looking to the map for a place to go that had showers, bathrooms, and sinks, so we wouldn’t have to drive the rest of the trip in our pajamas. The day was fixing to be a hot one and I didn’t think any amount of window-rolling or air conditioning was going to help us, because I’d already sweat clean through my t-shirt. And besides, I was really missing my coconut shampoo.

“Guide me,” I said as I put the key in the ignition and twisted it. Sixty coughed and shrugged us off irately, probably wishing we’d cut the trip short for the sake of the odometer.

“Back out the way we came. Turn right. Count one, two, three blocks, turn right again, then turn left and we’ll be there.” He wrinkled his nose. “What even is a ‘fitness center’?”

“Oh, you’ll see,” I chuckled, and put the transmission in gear. In my rearview mirror, I caught sight of a red shirt. Mitch waved at us from the side of a rusty brown Ford pickup, and, feeling more than good natured, I waved back.

The feeling of spontaneity melted down into a sweet contentedness that allowed me to drive without notions of pain or predators, which was, if I’m being honest, a nice break like Mom had asked for. Loki was still telling me about his flame, Sif, who sounded for the world like a very nice girl.

“She can make anything grow. Anything. Even Thor’s pine tree out in the garden! She rescued that poor thing from near death.” He hummed. “Thor isn’t exactly good with plants, you know, but Mother insists on giving him one for his birthday every year until he learns to keep it alive. I’m sure there’s some sort of lesson she’s trying to teach us with all the gardening, but I don’t know what it is.” Loki twiddled his thumbs and blew a sigh from his lips. “I miss her a lot.”

“You’ll see her soon.”

“I know, but that doesn’t make me miss her any less.” He turned to me, and I glanced at him to show I was listening.

“...Yeah, that’s true.”

Another silence filled the air, and when I wasn’t focusing on the road, I snatched little glances at Kid. He was staring out the window, so I couldn’t see much but the twitch of his dark, blinking eyelashes and the soft curve of his cheek. Even if he was smart, and even if he was well-spoken to a Shakespearean extent, and even if he was mischievous and chronically odd and interesting, I had to remember he was still a kid. Still a kid. Like I’d been calling him all this time.

“Does that bother you?”

He turned toward me with a frown. “Does what bother me?”

“When I call you Kid.”

Loki tilted his head to the side, thinking hard for a second. “No, it doesn’t.  
It’s better than some of the other things I get called.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. He returned to staring out the window, and soon enough, we had arrived at our next clean-up destination.

I slid into a parking spot and stared up at the weather-beaten building.  
“You think they have family changing rooms?”

Loki shrugged.

“Well, let’s see. Get your bag.”

They didn’t have a family changing room, but they did have separate shower stalls in the women’s locker room, which I figured was going to be the best we’d get for a little while. With the kind of money I made, getting a motel room - even for one night - was a little bit on the pricey side, and the more pennies there are to pinch, the better.

That’s not how the saying goes, but you get it.

I laughed to myself under the stream of hot water. The girl at the front desk looked about as bewildered as anybody we’d met so far, and probably thought we were homeless, like Mitch had been theorizing. We probably looked the part, too, but the assumptions of others gave me a little tinge of goodness, like we were up to something greater than anyone could ever imagine. I suppose that was the honest-to-God truth, too. Maybe Kid’s mischievousness was also growing on me.

As I rinsed the suds off of my body and out of my hair, I wondered once more if I really was starting to go insane. I mean, I’d wondered that ever since I’d baked that cake and socked Abigail in the gut. But that was years ago, and I’d been stable ever since. Mostly. This trip, though, was throwing me into a whirlwind of emotions I hadn’t experienced since then. One second, I wanted to smile and laugh out loud because Loki was the sweetest kid I’d ever met and we’d had so much fun just being together. The next second, I was scared to death of the thing we saw at the rest stop and whatever else might come. And the next second, I wanted to break down in tears because this was the happiest I’d been since before I baked that cake.

Now that - that hit me like a brick wall.

I stood in the shower, letting the water hit my face. One haywire stream flicked up and down as the pressure changed and stung my cheek. This really was the happiest I’d been for years.

And the most frightened.

The most… exhilarated.

The best.

“(Y/N), hurry up,” Loki shouted over the din of the drumming shower water. “You said we could go to that park and walk around!”

“Right,” I muttered under my breath and turned the handle of the shower towards the OFF engraved in the panel. The water cooled slightly, and then cut off. A towel appeared miraculously, slung over the top of the stall door, and I thanked Loki.

“You’re welcome!” He sounded as if he had something in his mouth. I heard a spat! noise. Must have been brushing his teeth. “All the time is a good time to practice seidr.”

I shook out the folds in my oversized beach towel and wrapped it around myself like a Hawaiian-print strapless Maxi dress. “Did your mother teach you that too?”

“Of course!” He shouted enthusiastically from the front of the locker room as I stepped out of the shower, grabbed my change of clothes, and ducked into a drier stall. “That was her lesson on responsibility!”

“Really?” I asked, shimmying into my pants and slipping on a pair of socks before knotting up my red Converse again. “Can Thor practice seidr too?”

“No,” Loki gloated. “Only me!”

I giggled. “I guess he’s not exactly one for responsibility if he can’t keep a tree alive, huh?”

“Not at all,” the little raven-haired prince agreed with a snicker.

I slipped on a clean shirt and tied my hair up so that the collar wouldn’t get soaked through. “So, what’s the responsibility piece with seidr?”

“It’s a form of magic,” Loki said, as if he had explained this over a gazillion times already. “You can do wrong by it, but you can also do good. And my mother is the kindest person there is on Asgard. It’s no wonder she would want me to use seidr for good as well.”

“What would she think of you charming all those people?” I thought aloud. “And what of turning into a different little boy to convince me to take you this far?”

A shadow appeared outside my stall. “Are you dressed?”

I swung the door open. “Yes.”

Loki looked at me sternly, fixing me with his green gaze. “She would understand that I am doing all this to get home.”

It wasn’t my place to ask. I knew that. But I kept staring at him anyway, trying to figure out what was going ‘round in that little head of his. If I could figure out his motivation, maybe that would give me a clue as to what I should do with my own emotional turmoil.

Great idea, my brain chided me. Looking for emotional support from a seven-year-old. Isn’t this exactly what they said not to do in those books you bought?

Shut up, I thought back to my brain.

Loki was still staring at me. “Besides, you fifl, I fixed your pan for you. That’s pretty good.”

I nodded along to his continued speech on Good Things He Had Used Seidr For and gathered up our things in the green carpet bag I’d lent him, stopping to thoroughly brush my teeth in the sinks at the front. Next stop: Pine City Regional Park.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know if you liked it, if it was boring at any point, what parts I should fix, if you spot any errors, etc, etc, etc. Love you all so so much! Have a brilliant day/night <3 <3 <3


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure if this is completely necessary, but just in case: trigger warning for gang violence in this chapter. It's only a bit at the end, but feel free to skip when you reach the point where Reader wakes up to a clicking noise.  
> Otherwise, please enjoy!

“Wow, look, Loki, a pine tree!” I pointed excitedly at the great coniferous giant in front of us on the trail.

Loki groaned loudly. “That’s the seventh time you’ve done that, it’s not funny anymore.”

“On the contrary,” I said, moving along at a meandering pace, scouting for more pine trees I could point out to annoy him. “I think it’s hilarious.”

He groaned again and trudged onwards. “How much longer, (Y/N)? We’ve been out here forever and I’m getting hungry.”

I checked my watch surreptitiously and whistled to myself. It had been hours, but we hadn’t gotten very far on the trail. That was because I’d insisted on leading us somewhere, but as was mentioned earlier, I’m directionally challenged. It would be fair to say that Loki saved us from possible starvation in the woods. And I was proud of him for knowing his way around. But sooner or later, I would’ve found my way out.

Probably.

Anyway, it was about dinner time, and the sun was on its way down to meet the horizon. The happy sounds of chirping crickets filled the air, as well as the feeble buzz of a cicada or two. Despite all the surrounding joy, neither of us was looking forward to nightfall. Whatever premonition I had felt last night at the intersection was bubbling up in my gut again—but honestly, that could’ve been the result of the lunch I had, which tasted a little bit off in the way that one might assume the chef was trying to get rid of week-old leftovers. In any case, there was a foreboding feeling settling in, and I could see Loki knew it too. He reacted to it almost like an animal would—as he watched the sky light up in the west and darken at the easternmost points, he got a little quieter, and adopted a leaning step that made less noise than before on the needle-carpeted forest floor. If he’d had ears like a dog, I’m sure they would have been pricked up and forward.

“Let’s go.” I said, and began my saunter down the trail back to where the Impala was resting in the regional park’s lot.

“Take the left fork,” Loki called after me, following quickly in his lean-stepping way.

“I know,” I shouted back and rolled my eyes, knowing he couldn’t see. You get lost once and everybody suddenly takes it upon themselves to guide you like a lamb to safety. Yeesh.

The premonition—or gastrointestinal discomfort, whichever it may have been—disappeared as we reached the edge of the forest and I could see my car again. Boy, was it dented. The Whatever-It-Was had knocked my poor Sixty around enough so that there were craters and dips in the metal on every side, including the back bumper and trunk hood, both of which had nearly been crushed. Good thing I’m better with a hammer than I am with a map.

At the edge of the forest, I waited for Loki to catch up, and looked around for a moment. It was beautiful—wherever we were, it was beautiful. I thought hard about what states we had passed through, and realized we were closer to the Canadian border than I thought.

It was charming enough for the north. The coniferous and deciduous trees certainly weren’t anything to scream about (thank God, I’d done enough screaming on this road trip already), and there were enough lakes, ponds and swamps to start running out of names for them, even within this park; but the sky lit up just perfectly in those sunset tones. The feathery blue. The glittering gold. The glowing orange. Every breath I sucked in tasted faintly of pine and earth and mint of some kind, along with that cool evening smell. It was nice. Not distinct to any state, really. Not at all. All that was missing was some laughter, and the haze of nicotine flavored smoke…

Kid Loki appeared at my side, observing the sunset with me, nose twitching slightly. I asked him what that was about. He said “nothing” and his nose stopped twitching, which made me laugh aloud.

Maybe there wasn’t anything missing after all.

“So, kiddo,” I said, giving a huge sigh like a trucker gearing up for a midnight shift, “What are we doing for dinner?”

“Mmm,” Loki said. “Don’t know. What’s in Sixty’s trunk?”

“Well, I’ve got a bunch of things. Canned ravioli, box mac and cheese, sandwich stuff, a bunch of crackers, chips, croutons without the salad, one of the avocados is probably ripe by now but I wouldn’t count on it because it’s been sitting in the dark…” I thought about avocados for a second. “Actually, maybe we’d better eat that. I think they ripen faster in darkness.”

“Avocado sounds good.” Loki nodded, black curls bouncing on his forehead. He paused for a moment as we strode back to the car. “What about that thing you were talking about? The Hole?”

“The what?” I frowned, trying to remember if I’d told him about a sinkhole that opened up on a road I’d been driving once. It was one of my Getting Into Something moments that resulted in a lot more financial costs than it did knowledge or experience, which sucked for me, having gotten my first car a few days before.

“Egg hole!” He said excitedly. “Egg hole? No, egg in a hole!”

“Oh, gotcha,” I said, laughing. “Well, I’ll give you credit, you got there eventually.”

He stuck his tongue out at me and I mimicked him, proceeding to jiggle the key in the trunk and sweet-talk the lid open so we could get to our groceries. I realized I hadn’t bought eggs, and a wise thing, too, because they wouldn’t keep from perishing in the cooler.

“New plan.” I said, pulling out some cheese and bread, still in their respective packaging. “How about we make grilled cheese with a side of avocado and tomato slices?”

“And those.” Loki pointed to a can of peaches in one of the shopping bags.

“And those,” I agreed and rummaged around in the back, looking for where I’d stowed the camping stove.

It was easy enough to make short work of the sandwiches. Although I wasn’t happy about having to wrap dirty cooking utensils in a bag to wash at the next site with a functioning water spigot, dinner was actually kind of nice. It’s fun to feel like a bit of an outdoorsman, even if the electric camping stove suggests you’re kind of a wuss. And even if you have to curse yourself out quietly for the fifth time in the past two days because of all things, you forgot to bring a can opener, and about half of the food you packed in your trunk was packaged in cans. Loki’s laughter was only pleasant for the first five seconds, but he just laughed harder when I threatened to use him as the can opener if he didn’t shut his cakehole.

“Okay,” I said as he was finishing his sandwich. “We’ll have the peaches for dessert when we get out of here and I find a decent joint that sells a can opener.”

He just looked at me and giggled.

I sighed and sat back down by the camping stove, preparing my cheese sandwich for the grilling ritual. “I know, I know. Scatterbrained.”

“Very.” He said. “But you’re an okay mom, since you remembered to bring a cutting board.”

The sandwich sizzled in the greased pan and I paused my tomato slicing to look up at him. “I am a pretty okay mom, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Loki was seated on the hood of the Impala, swinging his legs back and forth as he munched thoughtfully on the serving of tomato I’d provided him with. “Hey (Y/N)?”

“Hmm,” I responded, shoveling my spatula under the delicious stack of carbs in the small pan, flipping it over with the grace of a sasquatch dancing ballet.

“Do you think…” He paused and swallowed the bite he had in his mouth. “Do you think it’ll come back tonight?”

“I hope not,” I said, more to myself than to anyone. Then, louder, “Nah, I don’t think so. My pterodactyl shrieking probably spooked it.”

The little mischief-manager smiled and slid another slice of tomato from the cutting board right under my elbow. “Indeed. You do scream like a banshee.”

“Aw, now, be nice to the banshees, Kid,” I poked at him with a cheeky grin. “They might wanna come getcha and save you from the trouble you have with this old biddy.”

Loki smiled wider. “Can you cut up that avocado with just one look, O Witchy One?”

“Aye!” I picked up the knife and closed one eye, mocking a pirate’s accent. “Arrghh, I’ll only cut ye up some avecadee if ye’s polite to yer mummy!”

The little black haired boy absolutely burst into giggles at this. I was proud for a second, and then he gasped, “That’s not how witches talk, silly!”

“Aye, matey, it’s how pirates talk. And ye’s not getting any avecadee if ye don’t apologize to yer mummy and say you’ll be the nicest son of a banshee ever.”

“I’m sorry,” he laughed and laughed and I felt that swell of maternal pride like never before. Man, I loved this kid. Incredibly smart, incredibly funny, and easy to entertain… although the crazy borderline-traumatic experience we were sharing might have been part of the hilarity, I really did feel like I was the one making him crack up like that. And I loved it. I wanted to be the biggest clown in the world for this kid. My son. Before I could stop myself, I thought it.

My son.

Not your son, my brain corrected unhelpfully.

Shut up, he’s laughing, I thought back.

“I’m sorry,” he managed, still snickering to himself. “I’ll be the nicest son of a banshee ever. Can I please have some avocado?”

“Deal,” I said, and turned to the cutting board, only to see that the avocado had already been peeled, pitted and cut up into perfect, uniform slices. I turned in awe back to Loki, who was greedily stuffing slices of the green fruit—vegetable?—into his mouth while laughing some more.

“Don’t choke,” I warned, still smiling a little, and turning to my grilled cheese, which was now pleasantly burnt to a crisp on one side. I smacked a mosquito off of my arm and began to eat.

After we’d finished dinner, I sat back on the Impala’s hood with Loki so we could watch the sunset properly. It was nice. Blue and orange and gold, like before. Only there was no trace of pink cloud to speak of—clear skies tonight. I wondered how many stars you could see out here, and supposed we were about to find out.

“Hey (Y/N)?” came Loki’s voice.

I realized with a start that I’d closed my eyes and dozed off a little. “Yeah, bud?”

“Are you scared of Mitch?”

I frowned slightly, wondering what made him ask. “No, why?”

“You looked scared of him.”

A silence followed. I slapped another hungry mosquito away from my neck.

“Hey (Y/N)?”

“What?” I turned to look at him, but he blinked off into the sunset, refusing to meet my stare. Settling back on the hood, I closed my eyes again, and the answer came.

“Was Theodora mad at you? For being my kind-of mom?”

“No.” I opened one eye to peer at him, and he was tucked up with his knees under his chin, hugging himself in that way kids often do. “Why? You hear something?”

“She asked if I was a punk’s kid.”

“You’re not,” I said immediately.

“How do you know? Who’s the punk? What is a punk? Why does she think you’re going to get into trouble?”

I looked at him with both eyes open, now. “Where are all these questions coming from?”

He remained tucked up in his position on the hood, avoiding my gaze.

I decided to humor him. “I know because the Punk was my boyfriend a little while back.” Just saying it aloud tore my heart back open again. God, how many years had it been? And I still wasn’t over it? “And I… well. A punk is somebody who’s a no-good. Kind of a…” I searched for a definition that didn’t involve something I couldn’t repeat in a church. “A runaround. Who likes to get into trouble. Lots.”

“I’m a punk,” Loki whispered.

I shook my head. “No you’re not. Not like this guy.”

“But why does she think you’re going to get into trouble? Does she know about the…” He looked at me, then, and shifted his gaze to the rear of the car, which told me enough.

“No. No, I don’t think so. Theodora’s just been watching out for me since I was a little kid. In a way, she’s like my second mom.” I leaned back once more and closed my eyes, enjoying the sounds of the crickets and the occasional cry of a loon somewhere in the distance. The sky in the west was mellowing into a red and orange simmer of color, a new experience for me. I liked how it turned the inside of my eyelids the same color, how its warmth played across my face.

Several moments passed. I was on the verge of a very nice nap when Loki smacked a mosquito off my arm and jolted me awake.

“Bug,” he said simply, scratching at a few bites of his own.

I sat up and stretched. “Oh, boy. We oughta get in the car and work on those peaches, huh?”

“Yeah,” Loki murmured softly, and watched as I packed up our cooking equipment and stowed it back in the safety of the trunk. Loki climbed into the backseat rather than the front to hide among the comfort of his blanket kingdom and I hopped in the driver’s side, being careful not to let any of the bugs in with us. Thankfully, the night was shaping up to be a cooler one, which meant I could probably crack the windows like I had before.

If I dared to, that is. Maybe I wouldn’t. Just to be safe.

As I put the key into the ignition, I heard Loki’s voice, quietly, so quietly I almost missed it—

“Hey (Y/N)?”

“Yeah?” I asked, and turned towards him. He was wrapped in one of the linens from my hall closet, scratching vivaciously at the bug bites all over his arms. He paused, for a moment, and hugged himself again.

“I try to memorize and look at things because I…” A pause. A scratch. “...well, I want my family to think I helped get myself back home. That I’m not just… a nuisance. Or a burden. I want them to know that I can do things myself.” He wouldn’t look at me, and I had the distinct feeling he was probably tearing up—although his voice didn’t betray him at all. “I just want to have something good to tell them when I come back. That’s all.”

“What names do they call you?” I thought aloud in a whisper.

“That’s all,” He said, and pulled the blanket tighter around himself, itching at another red spot on his kneecap.

Sundown had passed just an hour ago, and the driving was already getting boring again. Loki wasn’t asleep this time, despite the encroaching darkness that could lull anybody into a trance. I told him he ought to stay awake because I didn’t want to disturb his beauty sleep just for some canned peaches, although I was thinking to myself that it might be disturbed by something else much later; something less good natured.

The interstate lolled lazily on down the stretch of northern land before us, and I noticed an exit coming up that boasted of a camping store, so I pulled into the deceleration lane to see if it was as good a joint as the sign clearly thought. The Impala shuddered around a sharp bend in the road and began to climb the short hill to where the store was located. The hill was littered with starlight, a beautiful sight to see in open country. It seemed cold, though. I figured these next few nights were just going to get colder; both in temperature and in circumstantial events. The premonition came creeping back into my belly like a lead weight.

Loki pointed out that we had yet to change into our pajamas, and he wasn’t enthused about the prospect of sleeping in the nice madras shirt that Tee had given him.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get ready for bed after we’ve had dessert. Maybe I’ll even find a nice story to read you.” I glanced over at him, snapping my attention back to the road when we hit the gravel stretch before the store’s parking lot.

“Really?” His eyes very nearly glowed in the dark, like a cat’s.

“Really.” I said, pulling the Impala into a space and twisting the ignition into the OFF position. “Now, I’m gonna go get that can opener. You watch Sixty.”

“Can’t I come with?” He looked around nervously, and I realized that, much like me, he didn’t want to be left alone out in the car after dark. I could have smacked myself for being so dumb, but then again, I could have done that for forgetting the damn can opener too.

“Of course.” I said, and we leapt out of our respective sides of the car at the same time, slamming the doors in unison. You know, as awful as the predicament of potentially stealing someone else’s child and having to drive an inordinately long amount of time to return them was, I actually was going to miss how Loki did that. How he slammed the car door at the same time as I did. It’s a stupid thing to miss, I know. But I liked it a lot.

The camping store looked friendly—at least, enough to quell the budding premonition in my stomach. The light fixtures inside lit up the crumbling path to the front door, where we hurriedly entered in order to escape the darkness. Funny how you start thinking like that, in terms of escape, or shelter. The only reason I considered the store to be friendly and not completely shady was because despite the chipped paint on the siding, roof shingles as bent up as Pringles, and boarded up windows on the side of the building, it was fully and completely bright inside—no dim lighting to be seen anywhere. Plus, there was a cute little bell that rang as Loki pulled the door open. Bells always put me in a good mood.

The fluorescent bulbs were much brighter than I anticipated and I stood in the doorway, squinting, before I got my bearings. The store had a very homey feel to it, much different from the exterior, but only in the sense that this part of the store was actually cared for. The floor was made from beautiful stained cherry wood, and there were a few coffee-colored rugs splayed out, anchored by large armchairs here and there. To my immediate left, there was a marble counter with a few miniature wire stands on it, full of things like keychains and magnets and chapstick. Resting atop the counter was a fairly old cash register and a stack of ruddy comic books that looked as if they might belong to someone who enjoyed Spaghettios on a frequent basis. If I didn’t know any better from the aisles of helpful camping supplies, racks of tourist-y shirts and sweaters, or the kayaks strung up on the unimaginably high ceiling, I’d have thought the place was a cozy hunting lodge.

“Hello ma’am and son,” called a soft masculine voice from behind the counter. “Be with you in a minute.”

“Okay, thank you,” I replied politely. Loki’s clattering, tiny footsteps drew my attention back to him, and I watched as he combed through the aisles of the store, almost hungry for the knowledge each label contained. He ran his hands along each of the shirts and sweaters on the rack, and poked around the little kid’s section they had set up, filled with things like collectable rocks, Hot Wheels cars, bookmarks, and whatever other cheap road-trip related things there are to sell. I followed at a brisk pace, quickly locating a navy blue-and-steel can opener. Kid Loki seemed to want to take a closer look around the store, though, so I went up to the counter to pay while he did so. Last I checked, he’d found the stuffed animal section, and I was thinking that maybe he’d find something he liked there, and hoping it wasn’t one of those bank-breaking thirty-dollar stuffed toys that fall apart once you throw them in the washing machine. I remembered having one of those toys as a kid, it was a stuffed (f/a) and I loved it a lot, but seriously—one ride in the washing machine and poof! Gone.

“Find what you need?” The boy at the counter, who apparently only spoke in half-sentences, had curiously light eyes for a brunet. The shade of blue reminded me fondly of Sixty’s most recent paint job.

“Yep.” I handed over five bucks and rocked back and forth lightly on my heels, noticing my joints were still stiff and starting to get sore from our little hike earlier. Man, I hoped I’d remembered to bring some Tylenol.

He blinked languidly, scratching at some stubble on his face and slowly counting out the thirty-eight cents he owed me in change. “Need anything else?”

I looked over my shoulder for Loki, who was running both hands along a beaded curtain in a doorway that led to another room. “Uhm… no, I don’t think so. But we might look around just for fun.”

He nodded resolutely and picked up the comic book he’d been reading, slumping back in the chair that hid him from view. “Okie doke. Just let me know.”

I quietly took my brand new can opener and wondered benignly how many ounces of weed or hash you had to smoke to be comfortable taking a nightshift out in the sticks like this. He was a nice kid, and I liked his jacket—nice vintage leather, lovely brown color, the kind I’d always wanted growing up—but he had a strange calmness about him, like he had some untold wisdom about the happenings around here, or like he thought he was invincible; but without the arrogance. First pick for an apocalypse team, I bet.

It turned out I was right about the stuffed animal thing. Loki was a bit bummed out that he couldn’t find a stuffed snake, because that was his favorite animal, but his second choice was a little husky puppy with cute green eyes.

“Can I have this one?” He asked, bouncing up and down excitedly. I guess the walk around the store had piqued his interest enough to ward off any weariness.

“How much does he cost?” Before Loki answered, I checked the tag. For the size, I figured ten dollars was a decent price. “Yeah, we can get him. Before we go up to the counter, though, let’s take another look around, huh?”

Loki nodded enthusiastically, took the husky pup in one hand, and grabbed my jacket sleeve with the other. “Come on, I’ll show you!”

The camping store was, of course, filled with camping equipment—fishing hooks, rods, lures; tents, canvas bags, little electric stoves like the one I had; kayaks, canoes, oars; protein snacks and dry cheeses and meats as well as thermoses and canteens; you name it, they had it. Extra stakes, hunting gear, bungee cord, hiking boots, sleeping bags, everything you could possibly want on any outdoorsy trip. However, there was also that homely part of the store, with the rugs and the armchairs and the faux animals out front; as well as lamps and other fixtures—some lanterns too. And behind the beaded curtain, in the second room, lay what felt like the “forbidden” part of the store. I was tempted to check with the light-eyed boy at the counter whether we were actually supposed to be back there, but it was well-lit and there were price tags on everything, so I assumed it was just another section of the store. Except this room was filled—and I do mean filled—with antiques.

There were really old finds, like porcelain dolls from the 1930s and 40s, and wall-to-wall glass cases of little trinkets like hand held egg beaters and salt ‘n’ pepper shakers, tobacco tins and beer cans. There were little toy cars and old arrowhead pennies, and buckets upon buckets of old photographs. I picked up a wedding photo that was dated by the year 1937. The couple looked incredibly happy, for having lived through the Depression. Both were squinting into the sunlight and it must have been a windy day outside the church, for her veil and dress were flowing to the right and his coattails were flickering too. They were smiling so hard it looked like they were just about to burst into laughter, and all of a sudden I understood completely why antique stores sold these pictures. History was occasionally a gift. And happy history an even rarer one.

“What are these?” Loki said quietly, in awe. He was standing before a round rack of army-green uniform jackets with medals and awards attached. I walked over to take a look.

“They’re jackets from World War Two,” I said, fingering the cuff of one. They were in good condition for something so old. I wondered vaguely how something like this could be here, and not in a museum.

“What’s that?”

Oh boy. How does one explain an atrocity on such a level without a professional-grade textbook?

Before I could begin my history lecture, the bead curtain on the other side of the room rattled and in stepped the light-eyed counter boy.

“Hey,” he said, in a non confrontational manner. I thought this was very polite of him, because I kind of felt like a criminal being caught red-handed.

“Hi,” Loki responded almost immediately. “What’s world war two?”

The boy looked at me funnily and I merely held up the arm of the jacket I’d been examining.

“Ah.” He nodded. “Well. Um. You know, uh, this is going to be hard to explain, but…” He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly and held up a glossy-looking wooden baseball bat. “I don’t know what it is, but I think you should have this. I’m not- I’m not trying to sell it to you just because, I just…” He inhaled deeply through his nose and muttered an “oh, boy” to himself with a little smile. “...think you really, really should have it.”

To be honest, I didn’t know what to think. “Uh… how much?”

“On the house.” He said instantly. “It’s yours. Seriously. I just have this feeling…”

The premonition, which had been dormant in my abdomen for the time we were in the camping store, was reawakened at the notion of a Weird Feeling from someone we’d just met. He reminded me of Mitch, another person who’d just wanted to help, but didn’t seem to know why he’d walked up to talk to me anyway.

I quickly leaned down to Loki and whispered, “This isn’t you, is it?”

He looked at me with big, round eyes that reflected the fluorescent light like pale glass rings, and he knew what I was talking about right away. “No.”

I looked at the counter boy again, who was standing, ever calm, with a red tinge of embarrassment to his face and ears. “Uh… thanks. I’ll take it if it makes you feel better.”

“Yeah. Please.” He said, almost relieved to be rid of the bat. I strode across the room and he handed it to me. As I examined the thing, I noted that it had a navy blue wrap on the handle, was relatively lightweight and easy to swing, but had a wide end. Whatever was hit with it would feel it quite heavily. I didn’t know whether I should be thankful for this or worried about what I might have to beat with a baseball bat later into our trip; if this guy’s “weird feeling” ever ended up becoming a truthful prophecy. I shook my head and glanced at my watch, cursing internally.

“Hey, kiddo, you think the peaches can wait until tomorrow? It’s getting kinda late.”

“Okay.” Loki hummed readily and wandered over to an ancient vanity and dresser set with a limp lace doily resting on top. He began opening and closing drawers as gently as possible, poking through the jewelry in one of the small side pockets near the top.

The light-eyed boy still stood awkwardly in the doorway, presumably mulling over what sort of weird feeling would persuade him to give a young woman a baseball bat as a parting gift. As such, I felt a little bad about breaking his train of thought to ask him if we could use the bathroom.

“Uh, sure,” he said. “It’s in the back. Um, different beaded curtain, a little hallway, and there’s two doors there. You’ll see.”

“Great.” I turned back to Loki, who was now sitting cross-legged on the floor, driving his stuffed husky around in a model of a Chevrolet Bel Air. “Be good for a minute, okay, Kid? I’ll be back with our stuff and then we’ll find someplace to hunker down for the night.”

“Okay,” the little mischief manager repeated, probably not really hearing me, as his attention had just been caught by an even older fire engine model.

I left the store with the bat in a tight grip, just in case the boiling feeling I was having wasn’t just my insides deciding suddenly that they hated me. But I managed to escape back to the building with our bags in tow, without so much as a peep, aside from the frogs and crickets singing the night away.

I beckoned for Loki to get ready for bed and we took turns in the bathroom changing into our pajamas and brushing our teeth. Loki was satisfied with the lavender-scented hand soap, and on our way back out to Sixty, he told the counter boy as much while I paid for the stuffed animal and for the wedding picture from 1937. I decided it would be a nice decoration for the car.

I also tipped extra for the bat, which the boy seemed to recognize as he counted the money. “Thanks,” he murmured, and I responded, “No problem.”

“Glad you like the soap.” He leaned over the counter to smile and nod at Loki, who nodded back solemnly, as if soap scents were one of the most important things in the world.

“She says cherry is the best but I think the plant scented ones are much better,” the little raven-haired prince intoned with a seriousness that matched exactly how I was feeling about having to leave the presence of another human.

“Personally, I like ginger the best. But that’s just me.” Counter Boy grinned amusedly and looked at me. “Your kid’s pretty all right, ma’am. You two have a great night.”

“Thank you.” I tightened my grip on the bat and our bags, steeling myself for another adrenaline jump into the pitch-black parking lot. “You too.”

“Story time!” Loki chimed and led us out the door at a full sprint. Before it swung shut, though, I heard the boy mutter quietly,

“Be safe. ...There’s things out there.”

I wanted to run back in the store and ask him what the hell he thought he was doing acting like we were the stars of a horror film, but Kid Loki had already run to and collided with the passenger side of the car and was yelling for me to hurry up and open it. I did as told and we were soon tucked safely inside the car, headlights on and engine grumbling about having been woken up at this hour.

I put the car in drive and eased around the parking lot, looking for the exit, as I watched Counter Boy’s blue eyes following us through the window over the top of his comic book. The idea of parking behind the store for the night was a tempting one, and although I knew we had some serious ground to cover before we reached the Canadian border, I also knew that I didn’t want to have to use that bat on anything, human or… not. So, against my better judgment, I ran back into the store to ask if parking for the night would be considered some form of loitering.

“No,” He said, looking somewhat reassured that we’d be sticking around. “You can go ahead and park, but I’ll be gone come dawn. The manager usually shows up around 6:00 A.M. but I doubt he’ll have a problem with you two sleeping overnight.” He smiled politely, nodded his goodnight, and turned the page of his comic book.

“And what was your name again?” For some reason, I was expecting to hear some variant of Mitch. I don’t know why. Maybe I figured everybody looking out for us on this road trip was going to have a name that started with an M. M for Mother. I wondered vaguely if the woman at the Wal-Mart in Liberty had been named Michelle, and then I started thinking to myself, boy, I really should get some sleep.

“Rick.” He said kindly, and I thought the name rather suited him for how gently he pronounced it. God, I really did need to go to bed.

“Like Rick Astley?” No, I couldn’t believe I said that out loud either, but that’s just how these things go.

He laughed. “Yeah. And yours?”

“(Y/N).” I said, and bid him goodnight once more, jogging back out to the car.

“Okay, now, tell me what World War Two was.” Loki said after having gotten comfortable in his little nest of blankets. We were both in the back seat, me, under my jacket and blue couch decoration, hugging the baseball bat; and him, swathed in all the other linens and comforters, squeezing the husky pup tightly against his chest and waiting for the story of a lifetime. Or what he presumed was going to be the story of a lifetime.

“Well…” I started, leaning back on the door, “Like all wars, it’s very, very complicated.”

He watched with large eyes as I explained the complexities of how it started, and why there had been a first world war, and also who had gotten assassinated and when, and why nobody bothered to try to stop Hitler until it was already quite quite late.

“And then what?”

And then I explained the fighting. D-Day, V-E Day, V-J Day, all that good stuff. I explained the functions of bomber planes, about napalm, about other chemicals whose usage was technically barred after World War One, and how war suddenly turned into a conflict about who had the greatest machine power paired with intelligence, not so much the body count of army soldiers. Though, of course, ground combat mattered too.

As I got into the gritty details of what I recalled from various history textbooks, I noticed Kid’s eyelids starting to droop, and lowered my tone to be more soothing and conducive to the easy arrival of sleep. Even in my premonition-haunted state, I was starting to get tired, too. It seemed odd to fall asleep to the disturbing recounts of grisly tales from wars past. Disrespectful, even, to treat it like a bedtime story. But I got to thinking about how everyone treats that sort of history. People get into wars. They want radical change, they elect whomever. They conquer. They seek to divide their enemy and unite their own. They fight and fight and fight and when the dust has cleared, and the horror has been experienced, the same people and their children gather up their bloodsoaked clothes and their fallen men and retreat home to put the whole thing in a glass case to wait until the pain has passed. And by that time, the next war has begun.

Loki fell asleep shortly before I was going to explain the atomic bomb, which led me to this branch of thinking while he gently snored away in his little blanket nest. Why do humans fight wars? Why are we so predisposed to good and evil? Why do we pretend to know what is wrong and right? And why is hindsight so utterly perfect?

I looked at the picture of the man and woman—the husband and wife—I’d taped to the dashboard for decoration. No. Hindsight wasn’t always utterly perfect. Sometimes it left you hurt, confused, spinning in circles. Sometimes it left you angry and looking to start a fight all over again. I wondered if she had loved her husband just as much. I wondered if she was as happy now as she was in that picture.

And with that last thought in mind, I slipped away into a dreamless sleep.

About five minutes later, the sun was shining into the passenger side window and blinding me through my eyelids.

“Gah,” I spat and scrunched my eyes shut tighter, trying to wrestle a few more minutes out of my temporary snooze. But it was not to be, apparently. My precious six hours had passed in a flurry and now I had the sun in my face and a kid sitting on my stomach shaking a can opener at me and asking for peaches.

Things definitely could have been worse.

Kid Loki and I managed to get the can open with little trouble and had ourselves a breakfast of fat peaches with cinnamon sprinkled on top. He insisted on trying a “peach sandwich” and I reluctantly gave him two slices of bread so he could complete this dastardly crime against food, but he seemed to like it a lot. Oh well. To each their own, I suppose.

We ducked into the store one last time to freshen up, and while waiting for Loki, I discovered that Rick was still there. That meant it was hardly six in the morning. I rubbed my eyes and wished sorely that I could go back to bed, but we had a long day of driving ahead of us and I had to be awake for it, sadly. If I were just a little bit more insane and off the cuff, I would’ve taught Loki to drive, but I figured that would catch attention real quick from just the wrong kinds of people you meet on a state-patrolled highway, and I didn’t think my kid really had the greatest extent of his Obi-Wan powers under control. Everybody we’d met so far seemed to like us, but I didn’t think we should really put it to that kind of a test.

Rick came up to me just then. “Morning.”

“Morning,” I responded as nonchalantly as I could.

He coughed awkwardly and his face flushed light red. “Find a use for that bat yet?”

I could tell he’d been wanting to ask for some time—but we hadn’t been disturbed all night, and I told him as much.

“Well.” He said, nodding and tugging on the lip of his faded mint green baseball cap. “Well.”

“Were you expecting us to?”

“No, I just… well, like I said. I had a weird feeling.” Rick scratched his head through the cap and looked like he was thinking hard about something. “You ever get that kind of thing? Where you know you’re getting into something and you feel like it’s kind of your job to help out?”

“Oh, more than you know.” I replied, wondering how good I was at disguising the absolute bewilderment I felt at having an oddly deep connection to a random counter boy at a camping outlet.

Just then, Loki came galloping up to us, face freshly washed and stick-thin body dressed up in another of Tee’s favorite outfits.

“Enjoy the freesia?” Rick asked with a smile.

“Yes!” Loki chirruped and held out his hands to me. “He changed the soap to another plant scent!”

“Oh boy,” I laughed, pretending for his sake to be a little more excited. “Freesia, you say? Well, I’d better go familiarize myself with it, huh?”

I took my time getting ready, feeling like Rick enjoyed having someone to talk to who was interested in everything he could possibly say about any antique item in the store, as well as whatever rare soap scents they sold. It was nice how they got along. I was almost positive that Loki’s seidr had nothing to do with it. Rick was just good with kids.

Stop it, my brain said.

Stop what? I thought back petulantly, and proceeded to comb my hair roughly.

After saying goodbye to Rick for a third time, and then a fourth after Loki ran in once more to ask him about his comic book collection, I started the car and we were off to find our way to the Canadian border. Loki waved to Rick for as long as they could see each other in the rearview mirrors, and I had to smile. It was nice. It really was.

“I like him!” Loki chimed.

“Me too.” I agreed and steadied the Impala on the freeway, where the smell of fresh coffee drifted out of the open window of an SUV to our left. Suddenly, I longed for my coffeemaker back home.

And on we went.

The sun was shining, the sky was blue; the air temperature was somewhere around seventy-five degrees—in short, it was a perfect summer day, good enough to rid me of the sneaking suspicion I’d had about nightfall. For now, anyway. And in the absence of anxiety, Kid and I took refuge with boredom.

“I’m bored.” announced Kid, swinging his legs back and forth on the car seat, gently tapping the dashboard with his shins.

“I know.” I wracked my brain for things he could do to entertain himself. “I have some books in my bag, if you want to read.”

“No.” He shook his head, making his black curls wiggle from side to side. “I get sick if I read in the carriage. Best not.”

“But you can read maps?”

“They’re different.” He explained shortly. “Books have all those tiny words scribbled together and they look like they’re all blending on the page every time we go over a bump in the path.”

Huh. “Well, okay. Um…” I searched for more ideas that didn’t include optics.

“What’s in here?” Loki pulled on the dashboard tab and out popped the compartment I’d kept shut since—well.

“Kid, you’d better close that—”

“Boxes!” Loki exclaimed. “What are they? They’re so colorful!”

“Those are my cassette tapes. Now put them back.” I tried to reach over and shove them back into the compartment without taking my eyes off the road, but Loki was more interested in playing keep-away. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted one tape in his hands that I remembered listening to about a billion times. If it still played, I could probably still sing all the right lyrics.

But it wasn’t going to play. I snatched the cassettes he was holding, threw them back into the compartment, and closed the hatch.

There was silence for a little while. Then Loki asked, “Are you upset?”

“A little,” I said.

More silence.

“Why?”

Oh boy, here we go. You asked for this, my brain reminded me unhelpfully. I told it to shut up.

“Because those are my cassette tapes.”

“But you didn’t get mad when I took all your blankets.” He said, peering into the back seat. “And you were only mad about the red pan because I ruined it, and then I fixed it, so that was fine. I didn’t break the cassette tapes, did I?”

“No,” I answered through gritted teeth.

“Then why?”

It was an innocent question. I had to answer without making a horrid person of myself, despite how much I wanted to scream in frustration at having my things from that time in my life just shoved back in my face when I’d forgotten they were there at all.

“Well… they kind of… hurt to think about.” I tried to explain. I really did. I don’t know that he understood, though, and besides, I didn’t want to mentally scar a seven-year-old. “I don’t know if this has ever happened to you, but it’s like when you enjoy things with someone… when someone introduces you to something you love, and you decide you love them too… the thing and the person, they’re connected. And then when something happens with the person you thought you loved, you can’t bear to love the thing anymore either. Because they’re too connected.”

“What happened?” He asked in a hushed tone.

“Punk happened.” I said simply. It wasn’t that it was simple. I was just trying my best not to cry on a sunny day with an open road ahead of me and a compartment full of cassette tapes that I didn’t know why I hadn’t destroyed yet.

“Oh.” He swung his legs some, but stopped after a little while. The rest of the hour passed in complete silence. He seemed to be thinking really hard about something.

Finally, it came. “(Y/N)?”

“What?” I answered as kindly as I could.

“You can listen to the music and think of me instead. That way it won’t hurt. And you can remember me that way too.” Loki said, staring straight ahead through the windshield.

I thought about it.

I thought about it some more.

Somebody cut me off in traffic and I almost cursed out loud, recognizing that we must be heading through another city soon.

Then I thought about it again.

After deliberating for the better part of yet another lonesome hour on the road, I said, “Okay. But you can’t play the blue one in there with the lady on the front.”

“Alright,” Loki said evenly, trying to disguise the excitement he clearly felt. I mean, he was nearly bouncing around in his seat, as excited as the day we embarked on this trip. Was that really three days ago? It was. Wow.

A sudden thought struck me. “Wait a second. Don’t you have, like, classical music up in Asgard?”

“You mean with all the flutes and lyres?” Loki wrinkled his nose. “Yeah. Boring stuff. I mean, sometimes it’s pretty. When Mother plays the harp…” He stared off into the horizon dreamily. “It’s magnificent. But I swear she’s the only one who knows how to play. I can’t make it sound half as good!” He poked around in the compartment before deciding on five colorful tapes and turned to me with a suspicious look. “These aren’t going to be boring, are they?”

“Oh, no,” I said, almost laughing a little. “Um. Well, it’s just that you might be a little bit surprised. And… I may have to pull some tapes out. Because the songs sometimes have cuss words in them.”

“What, you think I don’t hear those?”

“Well, not all the time,” I said, thinking that of the two, his father would be more likely to cuss aloud should the carriage hit a horribly large rock and split a wheel.

“You’ve said no less than thirty-one cuss words since I’ve met you.” Loki said matter-of-factly, watching my jaw drop with satisfaction. “I think I’ll be okay with some in these songs.”

“Oh my god,” I shrank down in my seat a little, imagining Theodora clicking her tongue and getting ready to smack me a good one. “Your mother is going to kill me.”

Loki just laughed.

“Alright, alright. It’s not that funny.” I was a little amused, but had to err on the side of caution and be careful with what I said around him. For his age, he had some good ears. Not that seven-year-olds are deaf or anything, it’s just that they don’t pay that much strict attention to whomever they’re with. Usually. Although by the time I was seven I’m sure my own mother had taught me a swear or two. “Put the tape in, two holes up.”

Loki followed my instructions.

“Now give it a shove.”

He did. There was silence for a little bit, and I assumed that was the car reading the tape. Just in the nick of time I remembered to turn the volume up a little, noticing that the knob was at zero.

It turns out that the volume knobs in very old cars are quite sensitive. It was a good thirty seconds of screaming and clapping our hands over our ears before I bit the bullet and sacrificed my eardrums to reach over to the panel and turn the volume back down. You know, it was a good song, but it wasn’t good enough to listen to it at 140 decibels. The lady in the SUV nearly choked on her coffee laughing and if I hadn’t been focusing on the pain in my ears and getting my breathing rate back under control, I would have pulled a face at her.

Loki rubbed the side of his head gingerly and listened to the song at a normal volume. “Well, it’s different from flutes and harps, that’s for sure.”

I nodded. “Track two is one of my favorites. This one’s just a little opener.”

For some reason, last night’s ‘bedtime story’ came back to me, and I got to thinking about wars again. How people get hurt, go insane, go home, and try to forget. I thought about how they put wars in museum cases and was glad that Rick had that rack of uniforms outside their glass, where they could breathe. Sitting here, listening to a tape of the songs I used to love with my kid beside me, I felt like I could finally breathe. I was outside my glass.

“Thank you,” I shouted over the music, which I’d turned up to a respectable volume for thorough enjoyment. Loki turned to me, in the middle of jamming out and bobbing his head to the lyrics so that his dark bangs wiggled and jumped from his forehead and back down.

“For what?” He shouted back with a grin as bright as the late morning sun.

“For everything,” I said, not even sure how to phrase it. I wasn’t even sure how I was feeling, exactly. I just knew whatever it was, it was good. And I was proud to have him there with me. No matter who his mother was, I felt like he would always be my kid. In a sense, he always would be—my Kid, at least. I laughed to myself and the Impala leapt down the interstate with renewed fervor as the music went on.

“What’s this one?” Loki shouted over the wind and the song.

I took a glance at the tape he had in his hands. It was labeled “90’s mix” in thick black Sharpie.

“You’re about to find out the best thing there is to learn, Kid,” I said back. “The fabled ‘guitar solo’!”

When we finally stopped for lunch, both of our throats were a little raw from singing along at the top of our lungs and screaming with laughter at the stupid jokes we threw back and forth. In short, we were exhilarated, and ready to get some food out of the trunk. To celebrate our lovely can-opener find, we cracked open a can of condensed tomato soup and I managed to create a meal out of it over the camping stove. I ate mine with crackers and Loki practically drank his straight out of the bowl, only pausing in his efforts to drain it after I slapped his arm lightly and told him to be civilized and use a spoon. He just laughed and continued to sip.

“Do we have more peaches?” Loki asked, digging into the shopping bags in the back.

“Yeah, but we just had some this morning. We should save them for later on, don’tcha think?” I asked. He seemed to agree once he found a container of fudge cookies, and we had two each before lunch was deemed both delicious and finished.

“Ah, that was good.” I leaned back on my elbows. We were sitting on the tailgate and watching the cars drive by on the interstate from a little grassy patch at the side of the road. The area we’d stopped at was on a cliff by a lake; with a stone wall and high guardrail keeping the road carefully separated from the shimmering water below.

“Yes.” Loki nodded solidly, and then got up and wandered over to the guardrail. I followed to make sure he wouldn’t climb on top of it like the little monkey he had proven himself to be.

The lake seemed more like an ocean. It was almost hard to look at because the noontime sun was out in full, and all the little waves looked like shards of glass shattering and reforming and shattering again with every rescinding movement. The deep blue and gold and silver were all so mesmerizing that I’d nearly forgotten where we were just gazing at them.

“Don’t lean so far over,” I told Kid, who had his elbows up on the rail and was peering out across the lake. He ignored me, but slid backwards a little so that he was a few inches further from the edge.

Nature thrummed around us in the midday heat, all sorts of bugs singing and birds cheeping and squirrels chittering. Wind swept through the grasses and trees to either side of us, resulting in a soothing sound not unlike white noise. I looked up and watched as the sunlight filtered down through the bright green foliage, turning greener and greener with each leaf it passed through.

It was peaceful here. There was something familiar about it, too. I wondered what it was, but before long, Kid and I had to get back on the road. We walked a few laps around the car for a good stretch, since I didn’t want to risk going either direction on the side of the road in case somebody thought my Impala needed to be towed. Once we were back in the car and Loki was picking out another cassette tape to listen to for the next four hours, I realized I knew where we were, but not in the way of a map.

I looked at the picture taped to the dashboard. The husband and wife squinted happily back at me, standing in front of the stone wall and guardrail keeping them from tumbling, wind-thrown, into the shimmering lake below.

“Hey, Loki,” I said. “Wanna take a picture?”

And that took another fifteen minutes away from our trip time. I had to figure out how to set up the camera on my car roof without a tripod, which would give us a nice shot if we could get into place quick enough. Once the timer was set, I yelled “GO!” and Loki and I hurried into place to squint against the sun and smile for all we were worth. And you know what? The picture turned out beautifully on the first try.

Loki thumped his calves on the seat excitedly as he looked at the little polaroid capture. “Look! It’s just like magic!”

“I know, right?” I smiled and retrieved another piece of tape so that we could stick it right next to the husband and wife.

“Why didn’t Lamar’s camera do that?”

It took me a second to remember who Lamar was. I was amazed once more at how long ago the whole adoption ordeal seemed. “I guess because it was a digital one. Some cameras store pictures on the camera, they don’t always come with film.”

Loki looked as if he were about to ask another question, so I hurried to clarify that I didn’t know much about cameras and their functions.

“Well, what do you know?” He asked, giggling to himself.

“I know that the cassette we’re going to listen to is going to be awesome, and I know we’re going to reach the Canadian border in a few hours, if you’ll read the directions off the map to me and work on not getting us lost.” I winked goofily and he laughed some more. “You just work on that, and I’ll tell you what else I know.”

So, the rest of the trip up until the border was filled with fun facts. Mostly, they were random things I knew from questions I asked as a kid. Things like what makes a pine cone male or female (yes, technically they are gendered, for reproducing purposes). I also told him the basics of balancing a checkbook; not that I’d ever owned one (and not that he ever would). I told him about how World War Two was the beginning of a bunch of other conflicts, and talked as much as I could about American history, which wasn’t much before he started yawning. So I moved on to recipes I had memorized, and how to pick a good watermelon at the supermarket. I told him stories about people I’d met; how I bought Sixty from a sketchy dealer at a car fair and been not-exactly-surprised-but-disappointed at how it broke down in my driveway two weeks later. I told him how I’d grown up, fixed my own dream car, met Tee, gotten my first job… pretty much my entire life story. I even told him about my own parents, (M/N) (L/N) and (F/N) (L/N), and how they’d grown up and proceeded to raise me. It was odd, thinking about how long it had been since I’d really talked with either of them. It was just another split Punk had put between me and my normal life, I guess. Just another split I had allowed him to put there.

“Hm.” Loki thought aloud. “You should go visit them. When all of this is done.”

I considered having to let go of him and hated the thought the second it crossed my mind, despite knowing how right it was, and how that was the point of this entire crazy trip. “I will if it makes you feel better, kiddo.”

“No, it’ll make you feel better. That’s the point.” He said plainly.

“Anyone ever tell you you should be a psychologist when you grow up?” I asked, looking over at him. He was staring at the two pictures on the dashboard, chin in his palm, elbow resting on the median.

“No. What’s that?”

And I explained the profession in the greatest detail I possibly could, up until we saw the orange flags on the border’s traffic stop up ahead.

“Alright, Loki.” I began. “Here comes the most difficult—or, perceived to be the most difficult—part of our trip. Border-crossing.”

“I don’t get it.” Loki slumped in his seat, tired of talking and listening to music and being in the car in general. “Why does everybody have borders everywhere?”

“Well, don’t they have borders between kingdoms?” I asked, steering the Impala into the marked lane. There was a dark green Toyota Corolla in front of us with a tail light bashed out, and the two officers seemed keenly interested in the passengers of that car, so it’d probably be a while before we were checked into the country. I reached into the back seat and felt around for my bag.

“Yeah, it’s called the Bifrost, and—well, okay, I guess Heimdall guards that. That’s fair. But it’s just the one!” He exclaimed. A brown pickup truck rolled into the spot behind us. I sighed and pulled the bag forward to properly rummage around for the right documents, which I’d carefully tucked into place about seventy-two hours ago.

“Well, you know. It’s the modern world. Business is business.” I said, not knowing exactly what I meant by that as I watched the green Toyota pull forward and execute the world’s ungodliest U-turn before zooming back in the direction from whence they came. The car housed what appeared to be a family of six, with the dad driving and yelling at the same time, mouthing what I imagined to be something along the lines of “I WILL TURN THIS CAR AROUND RIGHT NOW!”

Which you just did, I thought to myself.

The two officers looked rather exhausted by the whole ordeal and waved us forward. I nudged Sixty into the space just before the large striped sawhorse blocking the road.

The younger of the two officers came up to the car first, and I rolled down my window while motioning for Kid to do the same.

“Hi ma’am,” the officer started, and went into a spiel about the kinds of identification I would need, before asking if I needed it repeated in French or Spanish.

“No thanks, I speak English just fine,” I said, and passed him my birth certificate, driver’s license, passport and my copy of Loki’s adoption certificate. By this time, the other officer had come up to Loki’s window and was making what I assumed to be friendly conversation, because Loki sounded enthused to be talking about something.

“Darn it.” The officer at my window muttered, and I saw his eyebrows furrow above his aviator sunglasses. “Never get to repeat anything in French or Spanish.”

“If it makes you feel any better, you can,” I offered, and he smiled a little.

“I appreciate it, miss, but I’m sure it’ll come in handy someday. Just don’t see why they require three languages for the job if you’re only gonna meet people who speak English and a little rudimentary French.” He sighed, and his bleached-flour colored hair fluttered in the breeze as he finished combing through my passport. “Well, your IDs are pretty sharp. I’d say you’re good to go.” He nodded to Loki. “Nice kid you got there. Little family road trip, huh?”

I nodded, feeling a grain of anxiety grow in my stomach. I hoped they wouldn’t make me turn back just because I’d adopted him too soon. “His request.”

“Well, alrighty, then.” He smiled, stood and must have nodded at the other officer across the top of the car, and leaned down again. “You guys are okay to go ahead. Enjoy your stay in Canada!”

“Thanks,” I said gratefully, stuffing the papers back in my bag and waiting for the officers to shift the sawhorse to the side so Sixty could glide through.

“Did you know that a lot of people get kidnapped and taken to Canada?” Loki exclaimed once we were on the road to the next city ahead.

“What?” I asked. “When did you find that out?”

“That old man was talking to me about it.” He hummed. “He was nice enough but I think he thought I was being kidnapped until the white haired one said he saw my adoption certificate, and then we were fine.”

“Were you working your charm again?” I asked in a slightly accusatory tone.

“Maybe,” Loki said innocently. “How many people get kidnapped?”

“A lot.” I said. “Enough for them to have to be at the border checking cars like that.”

He fell silent for the rest of the drive into the evening, which was good enough for me. I guessed we’d both talked ourselves out of energy.

We continued our ritual. Stop in a parking lot, walk around whatever was nearest, come back to the car for a late dinner, and get ready for bed in the nearest bathroom. By now, I’d gotten used to the strange looks from the public. I even had a little staring contest with a woman in a Cub Foods bathroom, who had the decency to stare at a disheveled-looking twenty-two-year-old girl with a bag of dirty cooking utensils trying to plug up a sink with crummy paper towels so that she could actually do a batch of dishes. At least the woman didn’t run away. She just asked what I was doing and seemed to be reasonably satisfied with the answer I gave, which was a very obvious, “I’m doing dishes, what does it look like?”

She nodded and avoided eye contact for the rest of the time we spent together in the room.

I decided that we’d stick around the city for the night and pulled Sixty into a little urban alleyway, taking chances with a potential ticket. After all, there wasn’t a sign anywhere dictating that one couldn’t park in an alley overnight. I was just happy to get some rest in a populated area for once.  
As I climbed into the back seat once more, I thought how nice it would have been to see the stars again. Open countryside and the city both had their pros and cons, the visibility being one of them. Stars were always a comfort, shining up there, sometimes misted by cloud cover. You could easily forget about them if it was a cloudy night, but on the eve of the new moon, there was nothing quite as memorable as a beautiful starry sky. It was like God had spilled sugar on his obsidian countertop while making coffee. Or the remnants of a silver explosion somewhere, sometime long ago; shrapnel of cold, hard beauty twinkling in the night’s curtains. Loki shuffled over to give me some room and I quietly thanked him, tucking a linen around my shoulders.

“Do you know any good bedtime stories?” The little raven-haired prince asked.

I had to think about that for a minute. I knew the basics of every Disney princess movie, but I didn’t figure he’d want to hear about any of those. “Um… maybe. What kind of stories do you like, besides war stories?”

Now it was Loki’s turn to think. “Well, I used to like ghost stories. I’m not so sure I do anymore.”

“I feel ya,” I nodded. He looked perturbed and bewildered for a second.

“You’re not even touching me!”

That made me giggle. “Just a figure of speech, Loki, don’t worry. How about a story…” I thought hard. “...about some kids who wander in a forest?”

“Okay,” Loki agreed with a yawn.

I tried to remember how the story of Hansel and Gretel went. “Once upon a time, there were two siblings who lived with their father, and their names were Hansel and Gretel.”

Loki closed his eyes and listened.

“One day, their father went out to chop wood. Because he did that for a living. He was a woodcarver, that is. And he also had to bring back firewood so his children could stay warm. But he warned them to beware of the forest, and to not go into it unless he said so.” I continued, absentmindedly stroking the raven-hued curls atop Loki’s head. A street light lit up the interior of the car and he looked awfully pale in the dark, but I pressed on, knowing he was just about to fall asleep. “This one day, though, they didn’t listen.”

“And their mother?” He murmured.

“No mother,” I said, wondering if they actually did have a mother and I just didn’t remember what had happened to her.

“Mm,” Loki said. “Go on.”

“They wandered out into the forest, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs behind them so that they could find their way back to their father’s cottage easily. And they came upon a house. It was a glorious house, all made out of candy. The walls were made of gingerbread, and the roof was made of icing. The chimney was built out of chocolate bars and there were rock-candy windows lined with licorice. Hansel and Gretel had not eaten anything but bread for the past two weeks, and so when they saw this house—”

“Why didn’t they eat anything but bread?” Loki murmured through another yawn.

“They were poor,” I said, and continued on. “They began to eat at the house, and pick away at it, bit by bit by bit. And the lady inside suddenly came out, yelling at them for eating her house. Poor old lady. She asked them to come inside, then, so she could give them a proper meal. And when she had them inside, she kept feeding them, thinking up chores for them to do so they couldn’t leave.” I twirled a strand of his dark hair around my little finger. It was as soft as silk. “She was fattening them up so she could cook them and eat them.”

Loki opened one cat-like eye, suddenly much more interested.

“One morning, she asked Gretel to get in the oven to see if it was hot enough to bake bread. Gretel knew it was a trick, so she played dumb and pretended she didn’t know what the witch meant. So the witch said, ‘no, you imbecile, like THIS!’, and climbed into the oven. Gretel slammed the door behind her and the witch burned up. Then Gretel got her brother, who had found a chest of valuable jewels that the witch had kept secret, and they took the jewels back to their father. Instantly, their family was rich and they could afford to eat well.” I patted Loki’s forehead. “And they all lived happily ever after. Except the witch, of course.”

I almost expected him to say something sarcastic about how lovely of a bedtime story that was, but noticed by his slow, deep breathing that he was most certainly fast asleep. I only had time to wonder how much of the story he’d actually heard before I slipped into the world of the unconscious myself.

This time, I woke earlier than three in the morning. I wasn’t sure what time it was, but it was about as dark out as it had been when I’d fallen asleep. The street lamp still shone brightly. I didn’t know what woke me at first. In fact, I was still drowsy, and was about to fall back asleep when I heard it again.

Click click click.

The sound of my door handle being picked open.

Before I could even scream, the door at my feet swung open and a man, not even a man, a boy, leaned halfway into the car and paused.

I looked at him, wide eyed and wondering what the hell was going on. He looked at me the same way, eyes dodging between me and Loki and back again. He was dark eyed and unsure. The bright red bandana he had tied around his mouth was the only thing that had color in the cold glare of the street lamp.

He ducked out of the car and yelled back with a muffled voice to someone else. “She’s got a kid!”

“No one fucking cares, Tatchi, get her,” a voice echoed back across the alley. The blood pumping through my veins suddenly felt as sickening as liquid mercury, and I struggled to reach for my bat before the dark-eyed Tatchi grabbed both of my legs and hauled me out onto the cold, rough asphalt. I screamed as the gravel raked my stomach, and Tatchi hit me in the back like he didn’t really mean to.

“Tatchi, you son of a bitch,” yelled a different voice. “She’s practically playing for you. You got it in the bag, now finish the deal!”

I threw myself around and caught sight of the owners of Tatchi’s conscience. These weren’t any more than boys, either, probably Rick’s age, or a little older. They all had dark eyes, though, dark and gleaming, and they all wore the same red bandanas around their faces to conceal their mouths.

“Oh shit,” I muttered.

I was now part of a gang initiation.

“What are you gonna do to me?” I said to Tatchi, who looked surprised, like no victim could ever say anything reasonable without screaming or begging for their lives first. “What the hell are they telling you to do to me? Say it. Say it!”

“I’m supposed to-” Tatchi gulped and chanced a look back at the other boys, who egged him on and threw insults at him. “I’m supposed to rob a-and maybe- uh-”

I kicked my feet out of his grip and was on them in an instant. “Look, Tatch, I’m sorry about this, okay?”

“Wha-?” was all he was able to get out before he hit the ground. The resounding crack! from the baseball bat against his head echoed around the alley, making the others fall silent. I had time to pray that I didn’t kill him accidentally before trying to get back into the car and drive. I slammed the rear door and threw open the driver’s side before another lead weight hit the two-ton stack in my stomach, the result of overpowering adrenaline and fear—one of the older boys, the leader, had an iron grip on my left arm and ripped me back out of the car so hard I thought my neck would snap from the jolt. Somewhere, Loki was screaming. I still had the bat in one hand and was about to put it to his head, too, when I felt cold metal press to my stomach. And this was no lead weight- this was an honest-to-God gun.

I took my chances and slammed the baseball bat into the arm holding the gun. There was a pop!, my ears rang brazenly, and I heard boys yelling with a wildness like yowling mountain cats. Silver flecks danced in the air and once I had a grip on reality again I realized they were not stars, they were the others’ guns, flashing in my view because I had fought the leader to the ground and begun to beat him with my bat. My right side felt sticky and twinged with pain I knew I would feel later once the adrenaline wore off. Another idiot lunged for the backseat door, and without even thinking to make sure the leader was good and unconscious I leapt on him, taking another stupid chance with the dancing guns around me. Nobody seemed to know what to do with their leader down, though, which I was thankful for.

I didn’t know what I was screaming. I just knew that if anybody hurt Loki, I was going to murder them. Hell, if anybody even took anything out of my car, even the damned cassette tapes, I was going to murder them. Homicide was on the mind tonight.

I beat the third boy until I heard his gun skitter under the Impala and then I stood, bloodied and breathing heavily. Six guns were pointed at me, including the one the leader had dropped.

“Okay,” said a soft voice. I assumed he was the second in command, and I hated him. In that moment, I hated him. He looked just like Punk. If I’d have ripped off his stupid bandana, I would have seen Punk’s face below. He knew it, too. “Okay. You’ve had your fun. Now get on the goddamned ground and don’t get up until we’re done.”

I opened my mouth to say I’d rather die than do what he told me to, but it turned out I had no time for that. Six resounding shots echoed throughout the night and my body jerked horridly to the side. I fell against the Impala’s trunk and laid there, breathing heavily, trying to figure out what exactly I had just heard and seen before I met my unfortunate demise. God. I could hear him crying in the back seat. I wished desperately that I could reach him.

I looked up in time to see the remaining five running away. One was holding his hand and cussing up a storm. On the ground lay six silvery star-colored pistols, each one with a blistering hole through the middle of the barrel. I wondered who the hell could be that good of a marksman. I wondered who would dare help me. I wondered who I owed my life to.

Out of the shadows came a young man in a red flannel shirt carrying a Remington hunting rifle. His dark brown eyes were sparking with a fury I wouldn’t have recognized on a man as kind as he was, and I tried to sit up to stare at him in awe properly. He stalked towards me, the heels of his boots clicking on the asphalt, and I only got one word out before I slipped back into a comfortable darkness:

“Mitch?”

“I hate gangs,” I muttered angrily.

“Hush up,” Mitch said, rubbing more antiseptic into my side. It turned out I wouldn’t have to go to the hospital and get a bullet—or six—removed after all. This one had just grazed my side and left a big gash. “I’m trying to fix your side and all that talkin’ isn’t gonna do you any good. Are you up to date on your tetanus shots?” He looked at me through his haystack-colored bangs, and I nodded, leaning my head back on the car seat as he swiped again at my open wound. It hurt like a bitch, but I wasn’t about to yelp and cry like I did when he had to pick gravel out of the scabs on my stomach. Now that hurt.

Loki was sitting on my left leg, curled up against my side, sheet white and still paralyzed with fear. I seriously doubted that anything was going to be able to make him talk for a few days, at least, because of the trauma he’d just gone through. That was why I hated those men. Not because they saw a woman and regarded her as subhuman, although I hated that too. It was because they saw a little kid and said, “you know what, fuck it, let’s go ahead with what we’re about to do”.

Ultimate disregard. Although I hoped I hadn’t killed Tatchi, I secretly prayed for the opposite about the leader and his third.

At the moment, we were safe in a Tim Hortons parking lot, far far away from the alley. I’d driven my car there, gritting my teeth the whole way, trying to explain what happened to a crying and shaking Loki. Mitch had followed in his truck and was insistent on cleaning up my scrapes and blood before any of us attempted any sort of sleep for the rest of the night. I wasn’t sure anybody was going to get any for the next few days. An attempt on your life like that costs you a few days of sleep, which in turn I figure costs you a year or two of your lifespan. Funny how these things work out.

Not really. Loki was terrified now. If he was scared of the Whatever-It-Was, it didn’t show half as much as his fear of the gang members. I wondered why that was, but I wasn’t going to ask him. I figured it was probably the unknown that scared him. In Asgard, they seemed to have mythological beasts, maybe similar to the thing we encountered. But evil people? Well. There was no telling with them, especially if you hadn’t experienced that type of ruthlessness before.

After we arrived in the parking lot, I just had to hold him for a while. For both of our sakes. He needed to be held so he could cry and release all the torment and fear he had just felt, watching the bullet graze my side and go through Sixty’s passenger door (which, by the way, I was pissed about); and I needed to know my kid was still there and safe and completely unharmed by any of those jackasses. And he was, physically speaking. But there were mental scars already forming. I couldn’t help but hate myself for that. If I’d just done something differently, he wouldn’t have woken up to screaming, or had to see everything that was going on. He wouldn’t have had to think his mom just got shot dead by six different guns. I wished so hard that I could take it all back and go back in time and park somewhere else, but I knew I couldn’t. And that was the hard part. I knew I was going to have to put this all in a glass case and treat it delicately because time will heal. But damn, if I didn’t wish I could change it.

Loki tightened his grip on me whenever Mitch came near. I had to explain to him in murmurs and whispers why we could trust him, how he’d taken that Remington and shot beautifully like an expert hunter to save my life. After that, Loki stopped holding on tight enough to cut off my circulation. But he still hung on. And that was okay. I thought it would be okay if I had to carry him around for the rest of this trip. I almost wanted him home immediately, just because I couldn’t stand the thought of any more bad things happening to him. The thought was enough to make me cry a little, and he didn’t notice at first, but after a while he couldn’t help it. I only cried harder when he reached up to brush my tears away.

During this whole time, Mitch worked silently to rid my abdomen of gravel and wiped it down with a double-dose of antiseptic, finishing off with a pristine white bandage from his old truck’s first-aid kit. Then, he went to work on my side, and that was when I really started writhing. It’s weird to have a graze wound. It’s like there’s a little sliver missing out of your side, except not really. It’s all there. Sort of. But it feels like there might be a bit more skin missing than there looks, and it hurts like there might be more skin missing, too.

Loki buried his face in my neck and held on while I took deep breaths through harshly gritted teeth. Mitch put on the bandage, finally, and told me I was good to go, which I was elated to hear. My abdomen thrummed with soreness as I shifted my kid around in order to pull my pajama shirt down over the clean white linen.

“Thank you.” I said to Mitch. He lowered his soft, dark eyes in what I assumed was a shy way, but he didn’t back down from the expression of gratitude. “Seriously. I would have been dead if you weren’t a sniper-level marksman. Thank you so much.”

“ ‘S’nothing,” he said, and then backtracked. “Well, actually, it was something. You’re welcome. But, uh…” He looked down again, as if collecting his thoughts, and I waited. “I don’t see how I can leave you alone again. I’m sorry, (Y/N), I really am, but I think we’re going to have to be friends for the duration of your trip. I just think you’re gonna get into trouble. Not that you attract trouble!” He backtracked again, and got a little lost in his own stuttering. “It’s just that, uh- you- uhm- well, things happen to you, and-”

“Okay.” I said, too tired to argue.

He looked at me.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing. Nothing. I just figured… you’d give a bit more resistance.” He shrugged. “You’re a nice girl, (Y/N), but—forgive me—you seemed quite independent at the diner. At Tobie’s.”

I remembered how we’d met and nodded slowly. “Well, Mitch, I can hardly say I don’t want you around now that I know how good you are with a rifle. And you’re honest. I like that too.” I gave him a hard look like I had in the diner. “But after this, you won’t have anything to do with us, okay? You don’t come near my kid, and unless you need some kind of non-somatic favor, I’d prefer you stay away from me as well.”

“A non-somatuh-what now?” He cocked his head to the side.

“A non-somatic favor.” I said. “I owe you my life, but I’m not a prostitute.”

At least he had the decency to blush a deep, strawberry red. “Good Lord, why would you think that? No. No. I’m not going to bother you or your son. I’m just going to be a lookout. Okay?”

I nodded. “Damn straight.”

Loki spoke up from the resting place he had found, laying his head on my collarbone. “Can he eat with us?”

I sighed. “Yes, Mitch can eat with us.”

Mitch smiled toothily, not unlike a goofy-looking horse. He saw me looking and dropped the smile immediately, favoring instead a subtle grin.

“Don’t do that,” I said.

“Do what?” He asked.

“Never mind. Anyways, you can eat with us, but there won’t be much other visiting to do, seeing as we got a lot of ground to cover. And we’re already a little bit off course.” I looked to the sky, which was beginning to lighten already. Another half day of driving, gone with the need to sleep. I cursed to myself again.

“It won’t be a problem, ma’am.” Mitch bowed his head lightly. “I’m just glad you and kiddo there are okay. Thanks for letting me do this.”

I nodded wearily, and then a thought occurred to me.

“Mitch, how did you know to follow us?”

He paused mid-step back to his old brown Ford pickup and turned to look at me funnily.

“I just had a feeling,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this wasn't too heavy of a chapter for you all. Love you lots! Stay safe out there <3


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for suicidal thoughts/ideation. It's not the most explicit thing there, but there is mention of it and severe questioning of the reader's sanity and will to live. If you are having suicidal thoughts/ideation or otherwise, please reach out for help. The national suicide prevention hotline is listed below for anyone who needs it:  
> 1-800-273-8255
> 
> Also, Reader meets an Inuit woman in this chapter, as they get closer to the mark of Nunavut. I have to say that I am literally the most inexperienced person when it comes to Inuit culture and language, so if either of the two words I used for dialogue is wrong (and you know for certain!), please let me know.
> 
> Otherwise, enjoy this chapter! It gets heavy at times, yes, but it's still the same wild road trip. Adventure awaits :) Love you!

After Mitch had done the heavy work cleaning my wounds, I found it pretty hard not to go back to sleep immediately, despite knowing I really should stay up to comfort Loki. But our honey-toned southern gentleman assured us that he would be keeping watch while we slept, and I’m sorry to say that the second I laid down in the back seat on top of my comforter, I just slept... and slept... and slept. It was a while until I woke up, and when I did, my side was throbbing and stinging enough to make my breath stutter.

Loki was sitting in the passenger seat, playing silently with his friend the husky pup. I watched him for a little while, feeling inordinately guilty about what had happened the night before. Poor kid… being shot at had to have been terrifying. Although I didn’t feel much better having been the main target, everyone always talks about how fragile children are, and how you have to really keep them out of bad situations so they don’t grow up and become… well. Anyways, I don’t think children are all that fragile. But the way Loki was acting was strange. I just had—and pardon the clearly overused expression here—a weird feeling about it. I wondered whether the gunshots were still echoing in his mind. If I thought hard enough, I could still see the leader’s face under that red handkerchief. And that was enough to make me shiver, grimace, and feel even more guilty about the things I’d let Loki see.

Then I finally noticed something that should have been obvious the second I woke up.

I sat bolt upright in the seat, hit my head on the ceiling of the Impala and felt the graze wound tear a little. “Loki!”

He whipped around in his seat, startled. “What? What is it?”

“The car’s moving!” I hissed, clutching my side, which felt as if it were doused in gas and stuffed with lit matches. It took all my energy not to curse out loud. “Are you doing that?”  
Loki just pointed in front of us. I eased myself up on the seat carefully and saw that Mitch, handyman that he was, had taken a tow rope to the underside of my car and was now driving us cross-country.

I breathed a sigh of relief and slumped back down onto the lavender comforter, still holding my side. “Are you okay?”

He just shrugged and began fiddling with his fingers, almost as if he were playing that old game Sticks. I wished I’d bought a child psychology textbook to take with me, but I doubted any of them had any sort of chapter or note on how to properly deal with a traumatized child—at least, not one in a colloquial language that I would be able to understand. Still, I wanted to comfort him. I considered what I’d want somebody to say to me if my mom had just been passed out in the back of a moving car for god knows how long after we’d been shot at repeatedly in an alleyway; our little chance for survival based solely on a stranger we’d seen at a small town diner. Unsurprisingly, nothing came to mind. Loki and I were very different people when it came to ways of comfort, despite having shared tastes and opinions and general outlooks on life made up of sarcasm, mockery, and a little extra caring here and there.

But it bothered me, still, because I could see something was wrong. He wasn’t scared—or maybe he was. But he really seemed, for lack of a better word, depressed. Kid Loki sat in the passenger seat, completely silent, almost completely still, and only interested in playing whatever games he had in his imagination. He wasn’t even thumping his legs against the seat and dashboard like he usually did. That was fine with me, though.

Until it wasn’t. “Loki, are you okay?”

He put his hands in his lap and propped himself up in the car seat with a curtain of moroseness about him. His unyielding stare at the trees that sailed by on the side of the freeway reminded me of those people you see in movies where the main character visits a patient in a mental hospital. They just stare, unseeing, out into the world, as if everything in their head has suddenly turned to oatmeal, or maybe they’re just burned out from seeing way too much at once. I never knew what to think of those sorts of people. Usually they make me want to look the other way, because I feel guilty for being able to use my eyes and think clearly. But I couldn’t look away from Loki.

“Did you tell Mitch where we were headed?” Useless questions to someone who looks as if perhaps they have lost their mind in a muted, unforgiving way. I could have smacked myself, but with the operative word being could, I didn’t.

He nodded. I pressed myself upright and tried not to let out a noise at the pain pulsing in my side. “Hey, kiddo, do you need to tell me something? You’re a bit quiet.”

“Just tired,” he said. “I didn’t sleep.”

“At all?”

“No.” Loki said, continuing to play Sticks with his fingers. He snapped lightly a few times and a spark of green flame lit up his thumb and forefinger.

I wanted to ask him how he could do that, but I was already overthinking in double time and didn’t want to be any more invasive than I already had been. A garbage truck hurdled past us on the left with a roar and Loki flinched away from it as if he were about to be struck. Though it was an infinitesimal movement, my heart felt as if it had been cut open. I’d ruined this kid.

'Not your fault,' my conscience chided.

'Since when do you talk to me?' I said back silently. 'I want my brain back. She makes more sense.'

My brain, however, was still trying to think of things to do or talk about to make Kid Loki at least feel better. “You can come back here and nap, if you want. Or I could-”

“No.” Loki said monotonously, interrupting my train of thought. Despite the fact that he hadn’t raised a hand or even lifted a finger in my direction, I felt as though I’d been slapped.

“Okay.” I murmured, and minded my own beeswax for as long as I could. I stared out the window for a little while. The Canadian countryside wasn’t as unfamiliar as one might have thought. There were a few different stores and different types of landmarks and street signs and all that, but otherwise, it was all very similar to what we’d been seeing on the trip north. I glanced up at the sky and noted that it looked as if it were going to rain.

'Perfect for today,' I thought to myself with a brutal slice of sarcasm.

Loki kept snapping and, quite literally, playing with fire. I was going to tell him to knock it off, but I didn’t feel like moving my diaphragm to get the words out, lest the wound in my side bleed any further. That, and I thought I ought to give him some space. But if it got to the point where I was pretty sure the dashboard was melting or we were in imminent danger of becoming the world’s first traveling fire bomb, I’d definitely have to say something.

It didn’t come to that. The icy green fire remained attached to him and him only, through small flicks and flares licking up the sides of his hands and singing on his fingertips. He noticed me watching after a while, and he glared at me until I looked away out of shame and turned back to the grey sky outside the car window. Droplets of rain the size of a needle’s eye sprinkled and flickered onto the windows of the car, slanting with the direction of the wind. I sighed quietly to myself and felt once more as if I were alone in the car, merely watching over Kid so he didn’t do himself (or anyone else, for that matter) harm.

Eventually, I felt the stomach-flipping turn of the Ford whipping into the exit lane. Mitch was a bit older than I was—probably by about ten or twelve years—which made sense when it came to his driving skills. I guessed he hadn’t been to any classes recently. Nothing was wrong with his driving, per se, it was just that he took every turn at a speed that could make your internal organs do the Virginia Reel inside your ribcage, and as you might imagine, it isn’t the world’s most pleasant or enjoyable feeling. When the two cars came to a stop and he half-stepped, half-dragged himself up to the side of the car to check on us, he almost laughed at my expression.

“Where’d you learn to drive?” I moaned as I tried to sit upright and hold my abdomen together. My lungs felt as though they were settling back into place, but my stomach was still shimmying around.

“Down south and out back on the farm roads.” He grinned brightly, showing off his canine-space once more. “If you think my swingin’ into the turn lane is bad, you should’ve been on the tractor when I was driving it. Hooo-whee, good times.” He lent a hand to help me out of the back seat after watching Kid jump out of the car and make a beeline for the gas station nearby. We both looked on as the kid made it to the glass door and slipped inside before Mitch continued, “Otherwise, I hope it’s smooth riding back there in the ‘mpala.”

“I’m just glad you’re talking to me.” I smiled tiredly, and we leaned against the car for a moment: me, trying to breathe without disturbing any cut on my body that would spontaneously bleed with the wrong movement; him, rubbing his knee harshly enough to make me think it was stiff with rigor mortis. It still looked as if he were double-jointed, or hadn’t popped his knee back into place after dislocating it.

“What happened?” I asked.

He raised his eyebrows. “Last night? Well, you fell asleep after-”

“No, no,” I laughed. “I mean, what happened to your knee?”

“Oh.” He bowed his head and blushed a little, laughing out of embarrassment. “Well, I mucked it up when me and my brother were riding horseback out at our cousins’ place. It was, uh, some kind of a sprain. I don’t remember exactly which, but…” He grimaced, holding his knee cap as if he remembered the pain. “Something happened to a ligament ‘n there and I guess it just never healed right.”

I nodded. “And your tooth?”

Mitch laughed. “Well, that un’s easy, I got in a bit of a fight.”

“Really?” I asked, raising an eyebrow of my own, wondering how cautious I should be around a man who clearly could have been a sniper for the U.S. Army and who apparently got into altercations on the regular. “What for?”

“Ex girlfriend had a guy bothering her, he tried to catch her in an alleyway, and I happened to be nearby.” He shrugged like it was nothing. “Like I said, I’m a senseless do-gooder. I can’t help it. If the greater good is worth starting a fight over…”

I nodded, following along. “I take it you didn’t have your rifle on you.”

He smiled, flicking light wheat-colored hair out of his eyes and tilting his head toward me in a wholly endearing way. “Nah, that’s only for you, Missus. Special treatment ‘n’ all.”  
I pressed my hands into my abdomen and tried to laugh without shaking too much. “Oh, gosh. I guess I oughta be worried.”

“No need.” Mitch responded, and it looked like there was something else he wanted to say, but he glanced toward the gas station and slapped his knees lightly. “Speaking of things we oughta do, we oughta catch up with Loki and see what he’s gotten himself into now.”

I set my jaw at the reminder that I was really not the world’s best—or even world’s okayest—mom at the moment. “Yes. What time is it?”

Mitch pushed his shirt sleeve up to get a good look at the watch he had on. “You’ve been asleep for a while, (Y/N), it’s now eleven in the A.M.”

With that, I grabbed my bag and we walked across the parking lot, making friendly conversation until Loki burst out of the shop doors at full speed. He brushed past us without stopping and sprinted back to the Impala. I was about to chase after him and ask what he was running for, but Mitch stepped into the squat concrete building and I followed to see if there were any visible signs of a mishap. Maybe he really had injured someone in a canned-fruit avalanche.

The cashier, a middle-aged man with a bit of a beer gut and a patchy mustache, glared at us. “You know that kid?” He spat angrily.

I gave a questioning look and pointed over my shoulder.

“Yeah, that one.” He continued with a vehement rage that I was sure had been present many years before this exact moment, probably when his wife left him. And I almost felt bad for the guy. Almost. “You two oughta teach your kid not to steal.” He squinted. “Parents these days…modern schmucks…”

Before Mitch could put any soothing southern-drawl words into the mix to calm everybody down, I stepped toward the counter sharply, pinning the scummy tile floor under the soles of my sneakers. My side felt like it was on fire again, which only made my anger worse. “Who are you to talk about my kid like that? What did he take?”

“He almost stole these,” the man practically threw himself over the counter and waved three packs of gum under my nose. If it weren’t for the pleasant fruit-and-candy smell emanating from the small packages, I might have strangled him. “But I caught him in the act. Damn kid thought he was slick. Now, unless you two want to buy anything, legally,” He intoned, cold fluorescent light illuminating his hateful gaze. “You’d better get out.”

I thought about asking him who pissed in his cornflakes that morning. Mitch laid a hand gently on my shoulder. I took a breath and remembered that nobody knew what we’d just gone through. Or had been going through. Some people were just mean and old and ornery for no good reason, and this guy was no different. I didn’t want him talking trash about my kid, obviously, but I also knew deep down that it probably wasn’t outside of Loki’s social-acceptance boundaries to try to steal something when he was in a bad mood. I had to be good for him. I couldn’t excuse his behavior, I needed to make up for it. And I couldn’t always defend him—although if there were ever a time in his life where he needed defending, I could’ve sworn up and down that it was now. Now, now, now.

But I played nice. For Loki.

I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, sir, it won’t happen again. I’ll talk to him.”

Mitch patted my shoulder reassuringly.

“Damn right it won’t.” The man at the counter grumbled and tossed the packs of gum under the counter, out of sight. “What do you want, anyway?”

“May we use the restroom?” I asked as politely as I could for this particularly demanding situation.

“Requires a purchase.” The man grunted, staring at me with those burning eyes of hatred.

“Go,” Mitch said. “I’ll get a candy bar or somethin’.”

“Gonna sweet-talk him too?” I muttered, but began to walk down the short hall to the bathrooms. I was right. By the time I’d changed bandages and clothes and washed my face of the invisible grime of the night, Mitch was practically best friends with the man at the counter.

“I knew it,” I grumbled, heading for the door.

Mitch said a few extra words to the man, who laughed good naturedly and clapped him on the shoulder.

“The fiery ones are the best,” he proclaimed, beer gut wiggling with the laughter and glee he so clearly exhibited.

I was about to turn around and march right back into the gas station to ask what in Sam Hill they thought they were talking about, but before I could, Mitch came up behind me and ushered me out the door.

“Leave him in a good mood,” he said.

“What did you say?” I shoved him a little once we got outside, not wanting to knock him off of his bad knee, but wanting to put a little distance between us. “What did you say about me that got him to say- say- that?”

“Missus, please.” He sighed and tilted his head in that way again. I shook myself away from the instinct to feel bad. “All I said was that I liked you for your wit and sarcasm. That’s it. I promise.”

I pursed my lips. “That better be it, or so help me God…”

He smiled cheekily. “You’re just proving me right, (Y/N).”

“I hate you,” I muttered to myself and began stalking back towards the Impala, ignoring the stinging in my side. It was starting to feel better, after all. The new bandages felt cool and soft on the irritated skin.

“No you don’t.” He laughed. It wasn’t an arrogant statement—Mitch wasn’t an arrogant man. But I cursed myself, because he was right. I liked him a whole lot.

When we got back to our lovely set of cars, which I was beginning to think of as one crazy-looking limousine, I noticed Kid in the back of the Impala. Apparently it was my turn to sit up front.

“You okay to drive?” Mitch asked, heading for the back of the truck to undo the tow rope.

“Actually, I was wondering if you wouldn’t help us out a little more.” I stopped outside the passenger door. “I think I oughta talk to Kid here and see what’s up. And I’m no down-south out-back driver, so...” I smiled and shrugged helplessly. “Kind of want to keep an eye on him, you know, without running us off the road.”

“I hear you.” Mitch bowed his head deeply, which I was beginning to recognize as his way of nodding. “I figure we’ll be able to make it up to Split Lake today. After I finish this, that is.” He smiled good-naturedly and pulled a Twix out of his pocket.

“I’ll pretend that I have an idea where that is,” I said, and with that, opened the door to the car to sit down and have a chat about a potential theft with whom I’d come to think of as my son. I considered it one of the most difficult things I would have to do, what with the context of the last few days, but then I stopped myself from thinking that—with this kid, just about everything was immensely difficult and no one event outdid the others. At least, as far as conversations and wheedling information from him went.

“Hey, kiddo,” I started, before I noticed the pungent scent of bubblegum in the air. I turned to look at him.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’d grown into a teenager overnight. Not that he was any taller or anything like that—he just had the world’s most brooding look on his face, and was loudly chewing the gum he’d stolen without a care in the world. His black eyebrows were furrowed into a frustrated scowl and his aura practically knocked me over with the level of cynicism in it.

“Want to tell me where you got that?” I asked with a stern voice.

“No,” he said, and pulled a little pink swatch of gum out of his mouth, wadding it up in a receipt I had left on the median from one of our previous gas station visits. He tossed it back with a finality that really had me lost. Did he expect me to know what was the matter? Did he expect me to know what to do?

'Well, his own mother would know,' my brain pointed out rather unhelpfully. I sighed.

“Listen, Loki.” I tried to begin the best way I knew how. “I know you’re scared, but-”

“You don’t know anything.” He interrupted again, leering at me with now-suspicious green eyes.

I twisted even further in my seat, irritated that my bandages were already going to be spoiled with all this shifting around. “Really? What don’t I know?”

“How to read a map, for starters,” He said snidely, and I bit my tongue. Little twit definitely had me there. “You don’t know anybody but Theodora, and whoever that punk was, so you don’t know how to talk to people. You don’t know about seidr, either. And you don’t know about my family. You don’t know where I come from. When I tell you, you don’t even listen!”

Now that left me dumbfounded. “Is that what this is about? Loki, I do know about your family—hell, all the stories you’ve told me, I pay attention to those! I know you have a brother named Thor and a father named Odin and your mother is the prettiest woman in all of Asgard—except for maybe Sif.”

No emotion from him. He just looked out the window and crossed his arms, trying to find something in the grey world outside to incinerate with his piercing emerald glare. I continued. “I try to make sense of it. I have been trying, I just don’t know that I can believe something so fantastical—but seeing as you haven’t changed your story…”

“That’s it!” He yelled, and then toned his voice down, glancing out the windshield behind me at our friend in the pickup truck. I wondered if that Twix bar tasted as good as not experiencing this moment would. “That’s it. You don’t believe it’s anything but a story. You act like you’re my mother, but you’re just another child, you don’t know how to deal with seidr or monsters or even other people.” He tightened his crossed arms over his chest and squeezed himself, almost seeming to crumple a little. “At least I listen to you when you talk. I don’t have to. I don’t have to do anything you tell me to.”

I couldn’t believe it. It was almost like he was a completely different person. “Okay. Well… okay.” I got my thoughts together and sat facing the windshield so I could focus on not cussing. Not too much, anyway. My mother had cussed a lot when I was a kid, sometimes exclusively in my direction, and no matter how mad both of us were at each other, I knew it wouldn’t feel great to shout expletives at Loki. It wouldn’t feel great to be shouted at, either.“Did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t have to do anything you tell me to, either? No matter how much shapeshifting and fire building you can do with your little seidr trick, you still haven’t been able to beam yourself back up to your family. You need me to drive this damn car. At the very least, you need Mitch.” My eyes stayed glued on Mitch’s license plate as I spoke. “You’re a good kid when you want to be, Loki, but you attract trouble like flies on sh-” I snapped my mouth shut and then started again. “Flies on honey. Okay? Consider for a second that I’ve gotten pretty messed up too. I was messed up in the first place. Otherwise I’d have left you in that police station.” Without my realizing it, my voice climbed in pitch to the point where I was scolding him like Theodora used to chew me out when I’d tried to steal something as a kid. “I try my best to understand you, okay? I try my best to believe you. But with all the crap I’ve seen over the last four days, everything I’ve had to put up with, it gets hard. It gets really hard. And it’s even harder when the kid you’re trying to help starts causing trouble by stealing chewing gum, of all things!”

Silence.

I turned around in my seat, about to tack on another few sentences, but he was gone.

“Oh, fuck me,” I whispered, and threw open the car door. “Mitch! Mitch!”

Thank God he’d had his window down. He was just finishing the last of the candy bar he’d bought from the gas station when I ran up to the side of the truck.

“Loki’s gone,” I said breathlessly, already feeling the panic beginning to set in.

Mitch’s eyes flew wide open. “Loki what?”

“He’s gone. We have to look everywhere.” I was already marching away from the truck when Mitch swung himself out, ready to cover the entire parking lot if need be. There weren’t too many places he could have been hiding—some shrubs here, a dumpster bay there—so I practically sprinted around the whole area in under two minutes. No sign of Loki. He wasn’t hiding in any outdoor corners that I could see, not in the field behind the station, and not in the forest—I hoped. My heart flipped over in my chest like a little arrhythmic pancake and the panic increased exponentially. He wasn’t by the dumpsters, nor behind the car, not under it either, and not at any point around the store. He wasn’t even in the goddamn shrubbery. Not that a kid his size could hide in there, but I’d hoped he would be, curled up to his knees or something. Now I just prayed he’d be in the store somewhere, even if that cashier was likely to kill him the second he came into sight.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and whipped around, not caring when I felt my bandage crease and my side sting. Mitch was behind me with a deeply concerned look.

“He ain’t in the gas station, I checked.”

“Bathroom?”

“No.”

“Not even the break room?”

“No break room,” Mitch said. “And he wasn’t behind the counter.”

I cursed again and felt as if I were going to burst into tears right then and there, which is generally a cue for a person like me to sit down somewhere and hide my face. Following that impulse, I trudged back to the car and slumped into the driver’s seat, curling my knees up to the steering wheel and not even caring when my graze wound shot pain through my side. Kid—Loki. I’d made him feel so bad he had to run away. Jesus, what a mom. Even without cussing at him I’d messed this kid up further. I had completely ignored the boundaries of the last four days that we’d spent hours and hours building. All that trust? Gone in an instant. And now what was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to think? Generally speaking, when your kid runs away, you’re supposed to go after him, no matter the cost. But I just couldn’t. It felt like I was slipping into a black hole, the oblivion of cowardice. It only got worse as I watched Mitch run a little ways up and down the side of the road to see if he could spot the little mischief manager.

As if we were in a freaking movie, the clouds decided just then would be the perfect time to open up and let out all their frustrations on the earth in the form of searing rain and thunder. Great. Just wonderful. I buried my head in my knees and cried, hard, wishing I wasn’t here.

Would you believe it? I saw his stupid face behind my eyelids again. Him and his angry left hand, that glare, that hatred, the smouldering indifference in his eyes. Don’t be a coward, Punk chanted over and over and over. Don’t be a coward. Don’t be a coward.

I just cried harder. That’s all I knew to do, anytime he said that. Everyone always thinks it’s so easy to be courageous, if you know the right thing to do. Do they ever consider that sometimes, cowards don’t know the right thing to do? Do they consider having terrible predictions but perfect hindsight? Don’t be a coward, my ass. Why should I follow your example when your example makes you a jerk? Why should I follow your command to be the bigger person when you are no more than a stubborn hypocrite?

I unfolded my knees and proceeded to drape myself over the steering wheel so I could have a moment to list every curse word I knew of in Punk’s direction, including those in multiple languages. Still, the cowardice remained. Should I drive to look for Loki? What if he’d somehow teleported back to the house? Well, that probably wasn’t the case. But where was he hiding? Should I walk to find him? There were a billion different directions he could have gone in. What if I picked the wrong one? When you’re a kid, they tell you that if you get lost, you should stay where you are. What if you’re the one who’s lost the kid? What then?

“It’s not fair…” I heard my own voice from far away, as if at the opposite end of a brick train tunnel. I’d seen one of those, once. It was out of use at the time and the rails were split, which was exactly how my heart and chest felt now—like the beams holding them together had been ripped away caustically; violently, tearing my chest into ribbons. The curved walls of the tunnel didn’t echo, exactly, but they did make my voice sound far off, as if in another world. I felt like I was in another world now. A world where I would never be able to recover or get back on my feet again because the things that haunted me were just too damn much.

“Hardly anything in life is fair,” said a voice from the back seat.

I jumped up so hard I nearly smacked my head on the ceiling again, but I managed to avoid it. My seat (and my spine, for that matter) creaked as I spun around for what seemed like the millionth time that day, and there he was.

“Loki!” I cried, lunging forward to hug him. He let me, too, just sitting there awkwardly and probably wishing I’d get off him and quit being such a nitwit. But I couldn’t. It was as if I’d just been revived from the depths of hell. The rain outside was still pouring on, battering the car with little liquid bullets. “Where did you go? I’m so sorry-”

Loki sat as still as a statue and regarded me with a cool look. I began to feel wrong in a way that I couldn’t describe. I thought it was the guilt catching up with me, so I began to apologize profusely.

“It’s okay, Mother, I forgive you.” Loki smiled thinly and reached forward to pat my arm. Even through my jacket, I could feel that his skin was ice cold. And since when did he call me mother?

“...Loki?” I asked. “Are you alright? You’re cold. How long were you outside? Did the rain get you? Oh, lord, tell me you have a good immune system…”

Loki blinked languidly and tilted his head to the side, opening his mouth to respond. Just then there was a tap on the window. I turned again, and Mitch was outside the car, getting absolutely soaked in the torrents of rain. His hair was plastered to his face and his dark eyes were wild and scared as he pointed first to Loki in the backseat, then at the person he had in a tight grip.

My eyes widened and my heart stopped beating as I saw Loki, rain-drenched and hollering at the top of his lungs to be let go, outside of the car.

“Please help,” the Loki in my backseat whimpered. I looked at him in terror. That wasn’t Loki’s voice.

Mitch banged on the window and I didn’t need any more direction from him to get out of the car. Into the rain I went, holding up the collar of my jacket to try to keep dry, stumbling away from the car in shock.

At this point, the Loki that Mitch was holding onto had taken notice of the impostor in the backseat. He wrangled himself out of Mitch’s grip and tore open the car door in a fit of anger, hauling the other Loki out by his shirt front.

“Shapeshifter!” He screamed in fury, and the other Loki let out a roar that could only be described as the perfect marriage of a cigar-smoking devil and a 500-pound elk. They began to… well, the only right word is shift.

Loki flickered between forms, using his seidr to what I presumed to be his greatest extent. He was a pine tree, a blonde-haired girl, a tall woman, a blue-eyed little boy, a fierce bobcat, a green-eyed husky, a man wielding a meat cleaver, an old fisherman... on and on and on the race went. The shifter pinned beneath his fist against the flank of the car flashed just as easily, copying what was before its eyes, but Loki was quicker. He began to really lay into it and became an oak, then a sticker bush, then a cobra, then a beam of light; a woman, a man, a something, an animal, a spirit...

Here, I started to lose focus. Both of them were switching between forms so fast I was starting to get dizzy, and the air had suddenly cleared of rain, though the skies were still grey, and the ground was still being splattered. I felt hot and realized that steam was lifting off of Mitch’s clothes. His hair was beginning to lighten, too.

He looked at me, deep brown eyes full of terror. “Are you SEEING this?”

The panic in his voice only gave me some vague sense of comfort that I wasn’t the only one who thought they were hallucinating quite vividly. “Yeah, I’m seeing it.”

“Shouldn’t we get outta here? Shouldn’t we do something?” He tugged on my jacket insistently and I shook him off.

“No, we wait. There’s nothing we can do and I’m not leaving without my kid.” I had to holler back over the din of the storm surrounding us. The shapeshifter began to howl in pain, clearly unable to keep up with Loki’s lightning-fast changes.

“ARE YOU INSANE?” Mitch yelled, and for once, I wasn’t afraid of a man’s voice.

“YES!” I screamed back, and that was that. Mitch held onto my elbow, fearfully, ready to run and drag me along at any point if things somehow got more dangerous, but I already knew who was winning the fight. Nothing beats a frustrated eight-year-old who’s just been dragged back to the car after running away from his mom’s stupid lectures.

The shapeshifter began to cry weakly, mimicking that poor child’s voice over and over again, as if it actually meant the words this time. “Please help,” it wailed. “Please help, please help, please help!”

Loki’s form wavered and he changed, finally, back to his own self, madras shirt and all. There was a loud bang, and the smell of ozone filled the air. Before I knew it I was running forward to catch him. Somewhere, Mitch was yelling. But I wasn’t afraid. The shapeshifter beside me had gotten stuck in its pattern. Dog, cat, little girl, boy, man, elk, woman, mountain lion, bear, salamander, deer, dog again; over and over and over, still crying out for help in a pitiful tuneless voice. Loki fell into my arms and blinked once, twice, before closing his emerald eyes to the rain-filled, crazy world outside.

Mitch hollered again. I understood and raced with Loki in my arms to the pickup truck. With an adrenaline-induced agility, I swung us both up and into the passenger seat. The engine kicked in and I watched as Mitch flicked his now-dry hair out of his eyes and stepped on the gas. The tires of the Ford spun a little with the water on the asphalt at first, but the truck jerked forward and lunged out of the lot onto the highway, yanking my poor Impala along. When we finally left the thing behind us, it was still crying out and shifting like crazy.

“I wonder what that cashier’s gonna think of all this,” I murmured to myself, brushing Loki’s hair away from his forehead. He had more color in his face now than I’d ever seen him with, and his skin was warm to the touch; almost hot like he had a fever. I thought the ozone smell meant that lightning had struck somewhere near us, and the fact that his hair was singed at the tips wasn’t a good sign. Fear began to rise in my gut once more.

Mitch looked over as soon as he felt he’d gotten a decent handle on things. Up until now, he’d been relatively soft spoken, but I could tell with every word he said that he was having a seriously hard time getting everything out in a polite manner.

“What,” he began, still having trouble piecing it all together. “in the hell was that?”

“I’m thinking it was a shapeshifter,” I said, still scared that Loki had gotten electrocuted. I put my ear to his chest and heard his heartbeat right away, which was a good sign. He was breathing normally, too. I guessed that meant his vitals were pretty much okay. At least he wasn’t dead yet. Then the horrid concept of a coma came to mind.

“You’re thinking it was a shapeshifter.” Mitch said slowly. “And you saw your kid… shapeshifting… as well.”

“Yes,” I said, trying to remember the signs of someone being in a comatose state. I settled for trying to wake Loki up.

“This doesn’t bother you?” He raised his voice slightly, noticed he was doing it, and brought his tone down to a whisper. “At all?”

“Not exactly my first rodeo.” I said, and then laughed internally at the stupid joke. Mitch didn’t seem to think it was funny. I wondered if there was any way to accurately test one’s scientific level of sanity—kind of like how they test your IQ. Probably not. After a few minutes of relentless (yet half-hearted, because I didn’t wait to hurt him) poking, Loki opened his eyes halfway and looked at me.

“Hi,” I said softly. “Can I talk to you now?”

He furrowed his brow, but kept looking at me, so I took that as a yes.

“I’m sorry.” I said, and everything I’d felt in the span of the last few hours came pouring out of me like the rain out of the sky. “I’m sorry I made you think I don’t listen to you. I do listen, and I do care. It’s always hard for me to believe in magic. It’s like a blessing, or a coincidence, or a miracle. If it doesn’t happen to you, it’s hard to believe, and even when it does you think you’re crazy, and so does everyone around you. It’s hard for people on Earth to believe in things at all. But you’re here, with me, in the flesh, and I think you are very much something I should believe in. So is your father, and your brother, and Sif...” I hung my head and looked for the world like the most guilty woman ever. “I’m not your mother. I’m not your mom. I’m just trying to help. And I draw just as much bad attention as anyone else, even you. But that’s all I’m trying to do—help.” Unbidden tears came to my eyes and I quickly wiped them away, hoping neither Loki nor Mitch would see. “I love you very much. Even if I can’t be your mom, you’d make a great son.”

I closed my eyes and just cried for a little while. Instead of yelling at me, the vision of Punk behind my eyelids was eerily silent, merely observing me through my mind’s eye. I felt no less of a coward. I felt no less of a human being. And still, I hurt. My side ached and burned and the gravel scabs itched and tore and bled and I could still feel the want for my own child, the someone I could never have, because I wasn’t strong enough or brave enough or smart enough to know when a situation had turned sour. I had let myself build up a brick wall and pasted my life closed with crappily-made grout and cement, only for Loki to find the chink in my armor. Imagine that—one of my own, fallen from the sky like an angel, only this one came with a return deadline. I cried harder. The rain continued on, drumming on the roof of the Ford and splattering in self-sacrifice on the windshield. Mitch switched the wipers on. After exactly ten thump-thumps of them working to beat away the sheets of rain, I felt a hand smooth down my hair gently.

“Mom,” Loki croaked, sounding like he was thirsty enough to drink an ocean. “Don’t cry, you’ll embarrass yourself.”

I laughed and cried in equal measures and Loki just rolled his eyes and kept running his thin fingers through my hair like the wonderfully comforting son he was.

“I’m sorry too.” He muttered, almost to himself. “For stealing the gum. And for causing—attracting—trouble.”

I figured that was as much of an apology as I’d ever get out of him, and that was beautifully fine by me: a miracle in disguise. He propped himself upright and I gave him a careful hug before scrubbing the last tears out of my eyes and asking if he needed anything.

“Food?” He asked hopefully.

“Sure,” I said. “What kind?”

“I want to see what ravioli tastes like. You know, that big can, with the fat man on it.” He yawned. “Can we have that for lunch?”

“Of course. Are you going to be able to stay awake for a little bit?”

“Hmm.” Loki closed his eyes and leaned against my chest, snuggling up to my collarbone so that his singed curls pressed into my jaw. “Maybe not. Wake me up when it’s time to dine.”  
“Alright, Shakespeare. One more thing. Did you get electrocuted?”

As if he would know that, my brain said. I ignored it.

“No, that was just Thor, he was trying to help,” murmured Loki from the brink of slumber. After that, it was lights out for him. This was the soundest he’d slept since our first night on the road—well, before the Whatever It Was attacked, anyway.

A few minutes passed before I noticed Mitch giving me sideways glances. He seemed to have calmed down, although still appearing confused on a number of levels.

“Shakespeare? Thor?” He asked.

“Shall I start from the beginning?” I replied tiredly.

“Please.”

So I did. I opened with the day I went to the park, and I worked my way through our dodgy, unpredictable, mysterious and absolutely insane storyline, explaining everything that had a reasonable explanation and taking guesses at what didn’t. He listened for a while, asked a question here, interjected with a “wow, really?” there, but mostly remained silent and let me get everything off my chest—everything up until this point, that is.

“Well, Missus,” he began after a long, long silence. I’d almost fallen asleep again to Loki’s quiet snores combined with the thrum of the steady downpour, but I forced my eyes back open to focus on him. “That sounds pure crazy to me.”

I leaned my head back and stared into the old, worn roof of the Ford pickup. “I know. But it’s true.”

“I figured.” Mitch nodded. “It at least explains a little of what I just saw. And even if it doesn’t explain everything—well.” He glanced at me with a hint of a smile. “At least it makes me feel better.”

I nodded and rolled my head to the side so I could watch the raindrops racing along the passenger side window. I caught sight of the Impala in the side view mirror, and thought it strange to see my own car behind me with no one in it.

“You two sure have a special relationship.” I could feel Mitch looking at me, in a sweet way, probably tilting his head to the side. He turned back to the road after a second or two, as if he’d read my thoughts. “I hope I get to have a kid like that someday.”

The truck rocked back and forth almost imperceptibly. I felt exhausted down to my bones, but no longer did I need to sleep. “I’m sure you will, Mitch, I’m sure you will.”

He smiled and drove on.

Lunch was relatively quiet. Mitch joined us in the Impala for some ravioli and told me shortly afterward that he’d be happy to help wash dishes, which earned me an interesting look from Loki. I’m not really sure what it meant, but I figured I’d play it safe and rinsed all the dishes myself in the lonesome bathroom of the rest stop we were parked at. To be honest, I wasn’t sure the place was even up and running, but there were lights on and there was in fact a teenage girl on her cell phone behind the counter. I gave her a passing nod, pretending like I wasn’t holding a stack of three bowls, a bundle of spoons and a saucepan that all smelled suspiciously of Chef Boyardee’s ravioli.

I knew that food out of a can (especially of the “Fat Man” variety) wasn’t the most gourmet meal ever, but the way the little prince gobbled it up without a hint of any previous table manners he might have had, you would have thought it was the finest ravioli in all of Italy. Mitch was more reserved in his consumption of the tomatoey substance, which I was grateful for. After splitting a large can three ways, Loki asked if he could have more peaches, and I told him to knock himself out, which led to yet another explanation of modern idioms and hyperboles.

“You people speak so strangely,” Loki muttered as he tried to operate the can opener by himself. Mitch gently reached over and helped break the seal on the peaches’ prison.

“And you don’t?” I poked back. He mocked me in a slightly higher, whinier tone. I stuck my tongue out at him and he mimicked that too before stuffing a peach slice into his cheek. Before long, he looked like a chipmunk eating a lovely wintertime dessert—no matter how many warnings we gave him about choking and whatnot. It was about that point I left to rinse the dishes off, saying I’d better not come back to find out he’d inhaled a peach slice. That made him laugh and he actually did almost inhale one.

Upon returning to the hitched-up vehicles, I asked Mitch if he wouldn’t like to take a break from driving so much. “Would you let me drive the truck? It’s an honest question. I won’t be offended if the answer is no.”

There was a pause, and he thought about it. “Well, would you trust me in the ‘mpala?”

The way he phrased it, as he did most things, wasn’t sarcastic or condemning in the slightest. It was just pure and earnest. I considered what we’d been through and took a look at the crowded back seat, with Loki burrowing into his blanket kingdom with the anticipation of a boring rest-of-the-afternoon trip. I gathered up the electric camping stove (which, if I’m being honest, was more of a hazard than Loki’s curious green-fire trick) and handed over the keys to the car. “Yeah, I would.”

Loki cheered within his blanket pile.

Mitch blinked his soft brown eyes in what I figured was surprise, but could just as easily have been appreciation. “Well, thank you, (Y/N). It’s quite the honor.”

“It’s quite the honor,” Loki copied in his laughable mocking tone.

I gave him a look. “Are we starting this again?”

“Are we starting this again?” He said, and burst into a fit of giggles when I gave an exasperated sigh and rolled my eyes dramatically.

“Alright, you little devil,” Mitch said while passing the Ford’s keys to me. He was laughing too, but was doing a better job of hiding it. “Simmer down.”

Loki repeated the words and seemed to like the way they sounded with a southern accent, laughing giddily in between repetitions. “Simmer down. Simmer day-uhn. Symer dayun! Si-i-i-mmer…”

“I see how it is.” I snatched the keys out of Mitch’s hand jokingly, and stuck my nose in the air. “Well, since you like Mitch sooo much better, I suppose you’d better just stay in the car and keep him safe, huh?”

“Absolutely!” Loki chirruped from his bundle of linen. I wouldn’t have known he was in there save for a few black curls peeking out of the top and the glass-green eyes staring at me from within.

“I know when I’m not wanted.” I said with an aristocratic tone, and then leaned toward Mitch. “How far did you figure we’d get today?”

“Split Lake.” He said. “It’s about an hour north of here, but we could go further. Maybe as far as one of the park reserves they got up there. Looking at the map, it seems like the closer you get to Nunavut, the more regional park reserves there are. Pretty interestin’ stuff.”

I nodded. “And there’s a map in the truck?”

“In the glovebox, can’t miss it,” He replied.

“Okay.” I turned back to Loki. “You behave and don’t talk Mitch’s ear off, alright? Can’t blame everything on a sugar high.”

Loki popped his head out of the blanket pile and said with a cheeky grin, “Simmer day-uhn!”

He then began to scream with laughter as I poked at and tickled his neck.

“Okay!” He hollered, still laughing. “It’s the sugar! The sugar made me do it!”

“Be nice for Mitch,” I said, ruffling his hair with a smile. This time he didn’t try to lean away.

“I will,” he said, and fell back into his cushiony heap of cotton and polyester, sighing happily.

With that, I stepped into the ever-relentless rain and hopped into the driver’s side of the pickup truck. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t excited to drive something other than my own car for once. Sixty had character, sure, but she was a car—I’d only been able to drive a pickup truck a handful of times, and all of them were great. Mitch’s truck was no different—the driving was smooth and easy, and it handled well. Plus, it had a soft brown leather interior. Of all the things I liked about that truck, I was pretty sure that one took the cake and a little ice cream too. Nothing like guiding a worn-leather steering wheel onto the interstate when you’re sitting in the oldest, most comfortable driver’s seat ever. It was almost like a miniature home in there, complete with a music selection, some books, and clothes thrown haphazardly in the back. I rather thought it looked like my bedroom on a Saturday. The only difference was the autumnal colors and a faint spiced aroma. It took me a ridiculously long time to figure out that Mitch had an air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror, and sure enough, it was labeled Cinnamon Apple Dream. To quote a favorite musical group of Theodora’s: “what a man, what a man, what a man”. What a man indeed. Alongside the map in his glove box, I’d discovered some pleasantly contradictory music tapes that reminded me of my own. Some Sheryl Crow, a few of Pink Floyd, and a single tape marked “JOHNNY BE GOODE”. Clearly, Mitch Duncan had some taste. I chuckled to myself and put the tapes back, leaving the map out on the median for easy reading.

As excited as I was to drive the pickup truck, I couldn’t help but glance in the rearview mirror every few seconds. At first, it was to see what (if any) cars were behind me, potentially waiting to pass on this curving, sleet-slick road. Then it was to see how Mitch and Loki were getting along. I trusted the man with my car—did I trust him with my kid?

'You seriously have to stop doing that,' my brain reminded me.

'You’re no fun,' I thought back.

The easy answer was yes, I did trust him with Loki. Mitch had demonstrated already that he was in this for the long run. Although having a minor freak-out while Loki was handling the shapeshifter, he seemed relatively invested in the trip and had a nice enough heart and a sweet enough look that I believed him when he said he was a senseless do-gooder. The rain pattered loudly on the windshield, drawing my sights and thoughts away from them for a moment. Pines, evergreens, and huge blue spruces along the roadside provided protection from the stronger winds of the storm, and although it was calming to be surrounded by such giants of the forest, it was growing dark. An ominous feeling seemed to be circling the truck like the shark in Jaws, but I focused on the road ahead. My mind, however, eventually wandered back to the two people in the Impala.

I wondered about Mitch. About the music he listened to, about the clothes in the back, about how he’d sprained something in his knee… he was an interesting character if I’d ever met one. Certainly he had a few good stories under his belt, what with all the physical afflictions he seemed to have. I pondered what stories could be behind the scars on the palm of his hand I kept seeing—he had been a farm kid, so I guessed chicken wire might be the culprit, but I wasn’t sure. Something told me Mitch had a big event in his history—bigger than the fight with whoever was stalking his ex, bigger than falling off a horse or stumbling and getting stuck on some chicken wire. More like the situation I’d gotten myself into with Loki. What it could be, I didn’t know. But something had to have happened to him, otherwise, where would he learn to shoot like that? How could he stay calm while everything was devolving to insanity around him? How could I? Was I even sane?

I thought about that for a moment, and came to the conclusion that I was about as sound of mind as anyone could be in my situation, which didn’t say much.  
Maybe our types were just meant to run together. I wondered if Rick was the same way, and about the woman from Wal-Mart, and virtually every other person we’d met on the trip. How many of them had gotten the feeling; not from Loki’s seidr impressing charm on them, but naturally; that they needed to help us out? How many had had that kind of thing happen before? How many knew they were getting into something? It was almost as if there was a higher power at work, and I thought about how Loki had said that his mother would understand that he was pulling the charm trick to help himself get back home.

She would understand. The woman he’d been talking about seemed like the patron saint of all mothers—in fact, that was probably what she was the goddess of. The way he described her, she just seemed like the perfect woman; all light and fairy-like and always with a reason behind every gift, reward, and punishment. It was almost envious to me, except I knew it was wrong to be envious of a professional trait that some people are just born with. I could never be Loki’s mother, literally, figuratively, metaphorically, and any other way you could think of; because I was not a goddess. I did not have glowing hair, or lips like a rosebud, or eyes that had the little lights of joyful spirits swimming in them; or however else she might appear oh-so-delicately. I hoped that when we got to Nunavut, or wherever in the north we were supposed to be, that I would get to meet her. I didn’t have to say “hello”, or “here’s your kid”, or “thanks for putting me through hell, but it was hilarious so it’s okay”. I didn’t have to say anything. All I wanted to see was the woman I would never become.

It’s difficult to admit these things to yourself.

So, in avoidance, I picked up the map that Mitch had stowed away in the glovebox. I took glances at it every few seconds, and worked out after a good fifteen minutes which roads we would have to take to get us to this “Split Lake Township” the paper boasted of. I figured that would be as good a time as any to get Sixty outfitted with some snow tires, as it was probably one of the last points of civilization we’d go through.

“Maybe some more nonperishable stuff, too,” I thought aloud to myself, watching in the rearview mirror as Loki polished off the last of the fudge cookies, having the princely decency to offer Mitch a select few.

It was around a sharp bend in the road that I spotted the decrepit sign signaling that we were about to enter the town of Split Lake, which looked as if it had been made out of driftwood and scrawled on with a Sharpie. I realized shortly after that it probably had been—the actual sign was a regularly-issued green metallic one, partly obscured in the sheets of rain that were still coming down. I was beginning to wonder if the clouds had more frustrations than they were letting on about… perhaps a drinking problem.

Coming over the crest of a large hill, I was able to see the entire town of Split Lake, including the actual body of water it was named after. It was a pretty sight to see. The sun was still high in the sky despite it being 3:01 in the afternoon, and the snow that I’d begun to notice piling up rather sneakily at the roadside was glittering in the strong afternoon light. As we headed into town, I reeled the pickup truck a little too quickly around a couple of bends, just to get the hang of Mitch’s way of driving. It was kind of fun, too, but eventually driver’s ed instincts kicked in and I safely drove us to the nearest transmission shop, watching Kid Loki and Mitch laughing together in the car behind me. The glinting water disappeared over the horizon. I thought again about the picture we’d taken at the lakeside. Suddenly, I had a fierce longing to be in my own car with both Loki and Mitch, behind my own wheel and in my own old, comfortable seat.

Soon, I thought. Soon.

The town seemed almost deserted, but I figured people were still at their day jobs, and there wouldn’t be a huge rush to get home until around four or five. The truck heaved itself into the parking lot of the transmission shop and sputtered as the key came out of the ignition. There were a few settling clicks from the engine as I stowed the map away in its compartment, and I hurried out of the truck to give Mitch his keys back.

“So,” he said while climbing out of the driver’s side of the Impala. He was rubbing his knees like they were stiff from being cramped inside a small car for a change, but I knew from the smile he had on that it wasn’t all that bad. “She drive well?”

“Magnificently.” I replied, and tossed his keys to him. A cold wind blew straight through my jacket and I hugged the fabric around me tighter. “Shall we?”

“Shall we what now?” He asked, standing up and allowing Loki to climb through the same door.

“Oh, my bad.” I blushed lightly, out of embarrassment. At times it seemed like Mitch could read my mind, but others, I forgot he couldn’t. “I was hoping to get some snow tires on the Impala before we… well. Before we hit no-roads-territory.”

Loki, apparently disinterested in the minute conversation of two adults, ran off to chase a gull that appeared to be horking down a dropped french fry. The bird flapped its wings as a warning, but seeing that Loki had absolutely no intent to stop where he was, flew off into the sky with only half of its perceived dinner in its beak. No matter—Loki found another thing to poke at within the minute. An image of him eating a pine cone came back to me and I thought about warning him against it.

“Well, ‘course, that sounds like a good idea. Ain’t had a tire change in a while, either, I figure these ‘uns must be just about bald by now.” Mitch seemed to be looking for something in his jeans pockets, and finally got the “aha!” look on his face when he pulled out a penny.

I gave him a questioning look, and he stuck the penny in one of the treads of the Ford’s rear wheels.

“Just as I thought. Bare as bones,” he said, putting a hand on his hip.

“Alrighty, two tire changes. Any idea what that’s gonna cost?” I asked, and he turned around to answer when I heard a voice from across the lot.

“Illit!” A woman shouted, and I saw a wrench fly out from the open door of the garage. Immediately, I ran to see what was the matter. In the dingy light of the building, there was a woman standing in the corner, wild-eyed and clearly startled by something. She noticed me standing in the doorway and yelled something else I couldn’t understand, pointing to where Loki was perched on one of her work benches near the door.

“What did you do?” I asked, hurrying towards him and scooping him into my arms like a little bird. He fought every inch of the way to get out of my grasp, intent on staring daggers at the woman.

“She threw that at me!”

“I asked what you did!”

“Appeared,” he admitted after a moment.

“Tonrar!” More words which I did not recognize poured from the woman’s mouth.

“You what?”

“Just appeared! I just appeared in her garage is all, and then she started yelling and throwing things!”

As one would do when they see something appear out of thin air, my brain scoffed. For once, I agreed. “You go run back to Mitch,” I said, and he obeyed sullenly, dragging his feet with every step to meet the honey-blond man out by the Ford pickup. The woman was still in her corner, eyeing me and muttering something under her breath as she clutched the bib of her oil-covered overalls.

“Um, hi,” I started. “Sorry about that. He’s just a kid. Kind of rambunctious sometimes, but he means well. Did he really scare you that bad?”

She looked at me.

“Do you speak English?” I asked, and prayed that she did. She glared at me hotly and murmured a “yes”.

“Oh, good. Good. And you work here?” I pointed up to the ceiling of the transmission shop. She didn’t lift her glare, she merely crossed her arms and tilted back on the wall like she hadn’t just been scared to death.

“I do.”

“Even better. Do you guys have snow tires? We need two sets, but for two different cars.”

“Is it snowing outside?” She peered out of the garage, and I began to notice in the dim light how strangely pretty she was. She was like something out of a fairytale—you know how they describe some princesses as having almond-shaped eyes, or whatever? Well, she had them. Her face was long and elegantly oval shaped, and her thick black hair was knotted carelessly at the back of her head, adding to the somehow-sophisticated hard worker look she had. It was very strange. I could see her in a storybook somewhere, with a gown and a tiara, but she had a very hard look on her face and was obviously very invested in her work. Anyone could tell as much from the surrounding benches filled with every tool imaginable for servicing a car. I couldn’t even tell what some of them were.

“No, it’s not. But we’re heading north and we’ll need them, so…” I shoved my hands in my pockets awkwardly. “Would that be okay?”

“Let me see cars,” She said shortly, and motioned to the garage door opening.

“Alright.” Rather than follow me out to the lot, she strode ahead and stood in the middle of the concrete lot like she owned the place—which I was starting to believe she actually did. There was no defining name on the side of the building, but she sure knew her way around cars well enough, and she appeared to be the only employee there at the moment. “Mine’s the 1967 Impala, and—oh, by the way, this is Mitch. He’s tagging along.”

Mitch, who had previously been busy listening to Loki jabber on about something, looked up at the mention of his name. He made eye contact with the woman in greased overalls and smiled gently. I could tell it won her over immediately. Flustered, she power-walked over to the two cars and began asking rapid-fire questions about them as I tried to keep up.

“Rims bent. You let too much air out of the tires. Or is one leaking? Maybe.” She bent down to inspect every inch of the Impala. I could practically hear Sixty licking her wounds. Poor thing wasn’t in that bad shape. Every time I tried to answer one of her questions, the woman seemed to answer it herself, so eventually I just stopped talking and followed her around as she got familiar with all the bumps and grooves in my car. Mitch and Loki had resorted to sitting on the curb across from us, watching with intrigue.

“And you crash into something big, I see,” She mused, running a hand over the dented metal on Sixty’s trunk. “You open, please.”

I commenced with the ritual of jiggling the trunk lid open. After a minute or two she shooed me away from my own car and pressed in a series of three places, and then swung the lid open without a sound. No creaking, no complaining, no nothing. I was, in short, amazed. And a little bit jealous that this woman knew my car better than I did.

“Dented too much, hinge broken on one side.” She pointed to the right. “Yes, an easy fix, but you say snow tires?”

“Yep. Just snow tires. Although I’m glad you could figure out what was wrong with the trunk,” I said, trying to be polite. She nodded solemnly, thin, dark eyebrows knitting together with a tenseness I didn’t know the reason for.

“I see. I look at this beauty too.” Still speaking in stridently short sentences, she pointed at the truck; but I could tell she was looking at Mitch. With that, she beckoned to him and proceeded to go over everything that was wrong with his vehicle, in the shortest terms possible, but still less brusque than she had been with me.

I plunked myself down on the curb next to Loki, shivering in my light jacket. He leaned over to whisper, “I don’t think she likes us.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” I said, watching her smile gently as she explained what she’d have to do to fix the tiny craters in the wheel wells of the truck, presumably created by some harsh gravel. Mitch just stood there, nodding along, understanding as well as I did what she was saying. Or maybe he understood more—he seemed like he’d know a thing or two about cars.

“What language was she speaking?” Loki asked, pulling on my jacket. I slipped my left arm out of its sleeve and allowed Loki to clamber halfway into my lap, pulling the jacket around him.

“I don’t rightly know. I suppose it was a native language. It didn’t sound like any I’ve heard before.”

“Hmm.” Loki considered this as we viewed her tooling around under the Ford’s hood. “How long are we going to stay here?”

“As long as she wants to stare at Mitch, apparently.”

Loki gave me a long look, like he was thinking about saying something, but he must have decided against it. Probably a good thing, too, as the woman was approaching us just now with Mitch in tow.

“Good news!” She chirped. “Have cars ready in two hours with snow tires and maybe a few dents taken out. I fix the hinge for you, too. Your name please?”

“(Y/N) (L/N).” I said, and she fished for a notepad and pen in the depths of her overall pockets. Once she’d scrawled down my name on the grimy paper, she turned to Mitch.

“You too?”

“Oh, uh, Mitch Duncan.” He smiled. She jotted it down quickly, asked if she’d spelled it right, and asked for our keys. I begrudgingly gave mine up and she practically pranced off to drive both of them into the garage.

“Did you get her name?” I asked Mitch, biting my tongue before I could continue, and her number, too?

“She called herself Anah.” He said with a pleasant smile. “Said it means ‘wise lady’ or somethin’ in her language. She sure is a wise lady, though, she knew just about everything about those two cars.”

Well, that I did have to admit, she was good at what she did. I just hoped we’d be out of here soon enough. “What are we gonna do for two hours?”

“Walk?” Loki asked, scrambling out of my lap so he could stand by himself. “There’s a lot of forest around here. You can point out all the pine trees you like!”

“Yeah, I think we’d better not. How about just around town?” I suggested, already shuddering to think what we might find in the forest. It seemed the further north we went, the more things happened to us. I didn’t want to test our luck out here in the sticks just yet. No, sir, no shapeshifters for me.

Loki was not as easily accepting of this idea as I thought he might be. “Why not?”

“Don’t really feel like getting murdered today,” I muttered under my breath, and said louder, “I just don’t think it’s all that safe.”

He considered this. “Yeah, okay. But… I don’t know. I just have this feeling…”

'If I hear one more person say that,' I thought to myself, 'I am going to have an aneurysm.' “Well, it’s already kind of dark out. What do you say we explore the woods tomorrow morning instead?”

He brightened a little at this. “Okay!”

“Good.” I turned to Mitch. “Will you be joining us on our evening constitutional, Casanova?”

He flushed bright pink and I was a little satisfied at this. “If you’ll allow me, Missus.”

Loki gave me another long look like he was trying to communicate something to me telepathically, but gave up after about 50 tries.

And that was that. While Anah worked on our cars, presumably humming to herself and sighing like a storybook princess over our one and only senseless do-gooder, we went out for a walk on the town. Loki was happy to chase all the gulls he saw eating things on the sidewalk, much to the poor birds’ chagrin. I’m sure they would all have some complaining to do when they got back to their nests, but I couldn’t exactly tell Kid Loki to knock it off. He was having too much fun. The cold wind didn’t seem to bother him as much as he ran around, letting the breeze sift through his raven-hued curls. He ran ahead, dipped behind, ran ahead, twirled in circles until he was dizzy, fell back to walk alongside me for a short while, and then leapt ahead again. 

“You think he’s still on that sugar high?” I asked Mitch.

“Nah, he’s just being a kid.” He laughed. Loki found something on the ground and ran back to show me what it was.

“Chewing gum!” He exclaimed breathlessly.

“Oh, ew, Loki! It’s ABC!” I said, and shook my pointer finger in the direction of a rather unsuspecting trash can. “Go throw it away.”

“What’s ABC?” He asked.

“Throw it away and I’ll tell you.”

He muttered exasperatedly to himself and clomped over to the can to make a big show of tossing out the used piece of gum, but it apparently hadn’t hardened yet and was still sticky. After Mitch just about died laughing at the pink strings dangling from each of Loki’s fingertips, having tried to rid each other of the rubber-like goo, he offered the poor kid a Kleenex to scrape his fingers clean.

Once Loki was settled and we went on our merry way (having made a collective mental note to wash our hands before dinner), I told him, “ABC means Already Been Chewed.”

“I know that now,” Loki said in a crabby voice.

“Just making sure.” I stifled a giggle and resolved to look around at the scenery for a while. It was a lovely town, almost frozen in time with how old it appeared. We passed a library which appeared to be closed, a grocery store that had a few elderly people in it, and a building which (despite the lack of a sign stating so) looked very much like it might be a town hall of sorts.The sidewalks dabbled and curved delicately around corners, switching from modern concrete to old-time cobblestone. The streets were much the same, although a lot of them were also just open dirt. Each building had a little stone staircase leading up to it, with crafted iron railings and some potted plants here and there. Now that it was getting later, we were no longer completely alone, either—there were a few more people out and about. A lady in a faded pink fur coat waved hello as she crossed the street to enter a bookstore. I waved back and moved on.

As we were coming over the crest of a hill, Mitch asked, “So, once we get the snow tires…”

“Yeah?” I asked, and watched as Loki discovered that at the bottom of the street there was a lake—presumably the one sharing the name of the township, whose glinting waters had been quieted by a dull roll of clouds blocking out the sun. He ran full steam ahead, black curls nearly straightened back with the force of the wind in his hair, to the dock at the lakeside.

“Well, first, who’s paying?”

“I will.” I answered shortly. In my mind, there had been no question about this.

“Okay. Then I’ll pay for dinner. And where’re we staying tonight? It’s gonna be a mite cold to be in the car, I reckon.” He continued quietly but rather unabashedly. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye and he was still strolling along contentedly, as if merely chatting about the weather.

Well, that was a stupid comparison, because he was talking about the weather. But there seemed to be something behind that mild look of his. I wondered whether it was anything I actually wanted to know about.

“I was thinking I’d pay for dinner, actually.” I said aloud, but so quietly it may as well have been to myself. I spoke up. “And I’ll get a motel room, if there’s anything like it in this town. Something decent. No bedbugs.”

“For all of us?” He asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“You’re welcome to pay for your own,” I said, and he raised both eyebrows just slightly before smiling a little and nodding like he knew I’d say that. Mind-reader, I thought, but his expression didn’t change.

“How about I pay half the tire bill, you pay for dinner, and I’ll get my own room?”

“That’s fine by me,” I said, feeling like a little less of an adult. Which wasn’t entirely a bad feeling—my body had ached like I was 100 years old ever since that first day of stiff-legged driving. But on financial terms, I hated agreeing to anything but what my own brain had conceived of as a deal. I suppose some would call this a ‘flaw’, but it had kept me out of trouble for years. Not that I had many people to share finances with, mind you.

“Good.” He smiled, genuinely, and turned to look at me. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to trust me.”

“I do trust you,” I said defensively. “Maybe not with my bank statements yet, but I do trust you.”

That made him burst out into laughter. “Okay, okay, I understand.”

I didn’t think that was entirely true, but I wasn’t going to say anymore. Loki had gotten impatient with our meandering pace and ran back to grab each of our hands, dragging us down to the lakeside. We ran with him to chase away the seagulls on the slowly-darkening horizon. It felt a little like chasing away the horrors of the night, even if fluttering feathers and kicked-up sand didn’t perfectly emulate what we’d come across before; the Whatever It Was, the gang members and their silver pistols, the shapeshifter... but it didn’t matter. We felt safe.

“What a champ,” the burly bartender at the restaurant said. “You want some chocolate milk? I’ll go ask Macy for some. Be right back.”

Loki jumped up and down, clapping his freshly washed hands with a giddy smile on his face.

I sighed. “When are you going to let these poor people decide for themselves if they like you or not?”

“Never!” He laughed.

It was strange, how he’d been behaving as of late. You know, I’m not an expert on mood swings or children or anything—as if that wasn’t perfectly evident already—but this was almost too good to be true. But I’d already poked him a few times to make sure he wasn’t a shapeshifter. As far as I could tell, he was warm and human...ish. As human as the descendents of Norse gods can be. It was just odd how he seemed to fluctuate between morose and joyful. But, I supposed, that could happen with anybody.

It was certainly strange, though.

The burly man returned with a child-sized glass of chocolate milk almost hidden in his fist. If I’d been less concentrated on the other clientele in the restaurant, who looked a little less friendly to outsiders, I would have thought it funny.

“Thank you,” Loki chimed. “I like the lady on your arm.”

The man twisted around, looking as if he’d only just realized he had a rather X-rated tattoo of Megan Fox or some such sultry brunette on his limb. “Well, thanks, kid! Macy’ll be out to get your order in a little while.”

Loki nodded cheerfully and I grabbed his hand and led us over to the most secluded booth I possibly could. Mitch wasn’t with us at the moment. I suggested he go and settle the bill for the two cars with our friend Anah, and for good measure, gave him both sets of keys and a few hundred dollar bills. It was about dinner time when the little mischief manager finally got tired of running after birds, and I’d worked up an appetite running after the bird-chaser himself. It turned out that the coast of Split Lake was also rugged and split in terrain, and more than once I’d rolled an ankle by stepping wrong on the rocks, which left me feeling a little sour as I slid into the disturbingly greasy booth.

“What are you thinking for dinner?”

Before he could answer, Loki’s stomach growled over the din of the chatter in the restaurant, which I found to be an amazing feat. He laughed as I gaped at him.

“What do they have to offer?”

“An excellent question, sweetie,” a grey-haired woman I assumed to be Macy answered, slapping down a menu for us each on the tawny furnished table. “We don’t have too many kids’ foods, since this isn’t a regular kids’ joint. But just for you, I’m sure we can whip up something special.” She smiled beautifully and I thought to myself that if I were ever lucky enough to survive to 60 and past, I’d want to look like this lady. “Today’s special is Thurma’s Stew, which is fondly called—” She took another glance at Loki and seemed to rethink it. “—something I ought not to repeat in front of such a darling young man. What can I get you for drinks?”

“Another chocolate milk?” Loki asked, and with a double-take, I realized he’d drained his first glass already.

“Sure as sugar,” Macy produced a tray seemingly out of nowhere and scooped up his glass. “I’ll bring it back full of the good stuff. And you, Miss?”

“I think I’ll have [favorite drink].” I said, picking up the menu and already wishing I’d brought something to wipe it down with. “You guys have that?”

“Oh yeah, we got just about everything.” She smiled again, stretching the wrinkles around her face in the most pleasant way. “Anything else?”

“No, I don’t think so. Our friend will be joining us in a little bit, though, so we might order food later.”

Loki gave me yet another look, although this time I could actually decipher the meaning behind it: hey, I’m hungry!

“Or sooner,” I corrected.

She laughed out loud. “Well, I’ll check in, don’t you worry. Be right with you.”

I turned to Loki, who had taken it upon himself to organize all the little jam and jelly packets in the holders on the table. “That hungry, huh?”

He nodded. “But it’s okay. I’ve been practicing.”

I raised an eyebrow and without looking up from the little colorful packets, he snapped his fingers. A majestic-looking banana split appeared at the end of the table, still surrounded by a shimmering green aura. My jaw fell open again.

Loki looked at it, frowned, and snapped again, dismissing the lovely ice cream treat from the table as if it were an unwelcome guest. I asked why, and he said, “Well, I’ve been practicing, but that one wasn’t solid.”

He paused, then added, “And my mother says it’s not good to eat dessert first, no matter how delicious it is.”

I shook my head in amazement and went back to reading the menu. There were a few good-looking choices, but a lot of the things listed were items that would fall under the extremely vague category of “suspicious”. Not that a meal of eggs, ham and toast would normally be something to be concerned about, but when you call it “Chicks On A Raft with Noah’s Boy”, someone’s bound to be a little bewildered. “What are you thinking?”

Loki was busy frowning at the menu, presumably trying to work through the kitchen slang himself. “What’s ‘shit on a shingle’?”

“Watch your mouth,” I said.

“Watch yours,” he retorted, sticking his tongue out. “Saska Sissy sounds okay.”

“And what’s that?” I leaned across the table as he pointed it out on his menu. “Looks like a hamburger.”

“Yeah, only it’s what you’d call an ironic name, because it’s got chili pepper in it. So it’s not for sissies.” He mused over the lists of odd food names for a while longer before settling on another. “I think I’ll get this one.”

“Kid, there’s nine ingredients,” I said.

“I’m hungry!” He whined.

“Suit yourself, but we’re gonna need a bunch of to-go boxes. You sure you don’t want to split that?”

“Very sure.” He said. “What’re you getting, the real Saska Sissy?”

“As much as I’m sure you were looking forward to that,” I said, giving him a look, “I’ll settle for the… uh…” I nearly had to turn the menu sideways to read the font. “Biddy board, with… grease and tree blood, whatever that means.”

Macy reappeared in a whoosh! of the kitchen doors. “So! Still waiting on your friend?”

Loki made grabbing motions in the direction of the frosty glass of chocolate milk on her tray, and she happily served it to him. I wished she’d put it in a bigger glass, because it was already half gone by the time she set down my drink.

“Actually, Kid here is apparently starving, so we’ll order now.” I smiled at her and she returned it joyfully, taking the pen from behind her ear and plucking a notebook from the pocket in her apron. One of the louder customers yelled her name across the restaurant and she turned to yell politely back before leaning down and asking us what we’d like.

As odd as the names of the foods were to decipher, it felt equally ridiculous saying them out loud, even just to order. Macy must have seen the look on my face because she reassured me that the food I’d asked for was just French toast with butter and maple syrup, which made me breathe a sigh of relief. But the menu names were definitely worth it when I saw the look on her face after Loki asked for his nine-ingredient special.

“You’re sure you want the alphabet on a stick?” She asked, gentle hazel eyes wide with amazement.

“Yep!” Loki chirruped like a little bird and went back to doting on his chocolate milk, which is to say, devouring it like it was the tastiest creation of mankind.

“And you’re okay with this?” Macy looked at me, and that was when I began to worry about the size of this dish. But, against my better judgement, I said, “It’s what he wants. And we can always bring the extras home.”

“Oh, you’re going to be bringing home extras, all right,” She muttered under her breath, and went to go serve coffee or whatnot to the customer who’d been yelling across the restaurant for her.

I turned to Loki once more. “Exactly what is the alphabet on a stick? Sounds like a state fair food.”

“I don’t know what fair food is,” he said matter-of-factly, “but it looked really fun in the picture. All colorful and stuff. I think it’s like that salsa you made.” He grinned. “Guess we’ll find out, huh?”

“I guess so,” I murmured, and suddenly became very aware of a man sitting at the bar. He stood out from the rest of the rowdy men in the crowd, though not in any perceivable way other than the look he had on his face. Whereas the rest of the men were chatting and sharing stories with a vivacious energy, this man was speechless, and just staring with cold grey eyes directly at us. He had long, dark hair, almost like the tattoo on the burly bartender’s arm—but no way would I have said that out loud. Besides, this guy wasn’t half as cute as Megan Fox.  
“What are you looking at?” Loki said, but I shook my head and said it was nothing. Now we just had to wait for Mitch to arrive.

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear—through the window nearest our dingy little section of the bar and restaurant, I saw the two-car hookup pull into the parking lot and try to politely squeeze itself into two spaces. Mitch stepped out of the truck and I watched as he undid the tow rope and hopped into Sixty’s driver’s side to put the car in the correct parking spot so we wouldn’t get keyed or towed.

Loki watched out the window with me. “I think Mitch likes you.”

“Well, I hope so,” I said. “The man rescued us from near death, you know.”

The little prince turned to me with the most exasperated expression I’d ever seen on a child. “You’re so dumb sometimes.”

Before I could say anything more to remind him who the supposed adult was in this situation, Mitch strode into the restaurant while shrugging on a black leather jacket I recognized from the heap of clothing in the back of his truck. He spotted us almost instantly and smiled, picking up his long-legged stride so he could slip into the booth beside Loki. The grey-eyed man stared him down the entire time, but at this point I wasn’t paying attention.

“How are the cars?” I asked, after he and Loki had exchanged hellos.

“They’re just fine.” He smiled. “The bill was originally 1,500, but I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear I talked it down to a nice one-grand stiff.”

I started to feel like my jaw was never going to recover from all this dropping. “Are you kidding me?”

“Nup. Now, what’s on for supper?” He rubbed his hands together as if trying to create a little fire with the friction and looked generally inquisitive about the contents of the menu.

“Everything,” answered Loki plainly.

“Honestly, yeah. If you want something, get it off his plate.” I shook my head with vague amusement. Macy returned to ask Mitch what he would like to drink, and I wasn’t exactly surprised to learn his automatic response was Coca-Cola.

The three of us (I was beginning to think of us as the Three Musketeers, and then realized the Three Stooges would probably be more fitting of a title) had what you’d call a family dinner together. If I were to be completely honest with myself, I had a wonderful time. Loki was being his usual (well, unusual) entertaining self and earned a weird look from Macy when he requested, in addition to his nine-ingredient dish, the largest tomato they had. She brought it to him on a little plate and as soon as it hit the table, he had that tomato in his hands and was biting into it like an apple. Mitch narrowly avoided getting the sticky acidic juice all over his jacket. I remembered to ask him where he’d gotten it, and was interested to hear “from my dad” fall from his lips as he shuffled his hair around nervously with his fingers. We left it at that, but otherwise played the convincing part of Family With Small Child. I liked it a lot. If I was being honest with myself, I liked him a lot.

'You’re so dumb sometimes,' Loki’s plain statement rang in my mind.

I wondered vaguely what it meant and went back to chewing on my delicately lace-charred French toast.

“I take it you like to eat,” Mitch mentioned to Loki at some point, who was excitedly naming everything on his plate to make sure it began with some letter of the alphabet before stuffing said ingredient into his mouth with vigor.

“I’m just so hungry,” he answered, before skinning another alphabet skewer of its contents so he could eat them more neatly with a fork. “And they definitely don’t have the entire alphabet here.”

“Well, there’s only nine ingredients, so I don’t doubt it.” I interjected, pointing my own fork at his curious food-deconstructing practices. “Whatcha got so far?”

“A for avocado, B for bacon, C for chicken, no D.” He scrutinized the mixed-up contents of his plate. “I taste lime juice and there’s black beans in there, so it is like that salsa you made.”

“Nice,” I said, taking another bite of my toast.

Mitch sipped at his Coca-Cola, having already finished his meal, whose wacky menu name was something like ‘garden murphy and hogs’. Then he leaned across the table, closer to me. “Don’t look now, Missus, but you see grey-eyes?”

“I do,” I said without looking.

“Gives me a bad feeling. Almost like the shootout one.” Mitch leaned back and took another benign sip from the Coke glass. “Just watch him.”

I nodded my assent and looked over at Loki, who was waving wildly across the table.

“Are you two done whispering suspiciously?” He asked, and I pulled a face at him, which he merrily returned.

“Yes. What is it?”

“I would like dessert!”

“But you just—” I took another look at the plate that had taken up a good third of the tiny table’s space once it had arrived. Where it had been littered with deconstructed foods a moment ago, it was now sparkling clean, like nothing had ever touched it. I must have wondered about this aloud, because Loki clarified that yes, it was the same thing he’d done to my pan except the contents were now nested safely in his stomach, and would I please quit referring to seidr as kid witchcraft because those were two very different things.

“And you want dessert?” I asked dubiously.

“Shapeshifting does take a lot of energy,” he added, smiling like a little angel.

“Alright, fine.”

So, the next time Macy came around, Loki treated himself on Mitch and I’s behalf to a “Chicago Delight” which—despite being one of the simpler names on the dessert menu, was just as huge and extravagant as any other dish you could see the other customers dining on. As one would have been able to tell from Macy's shocked expression, it was amazing to watch him eat all that food and still be able to bounce around like a little rocket afterward. I guessed shapeshifting really was a drain. It at least explained why he was able to eat an entire can of peaches and a packet of fudge cookies in one afternoon and still be exorbitantly hungry for dinner.

After paying the bill, Mitch led us back out to the parking lot. On my way out, I couldn’t see Grey Eyes, and thought hopefully that he had either gone to the men’s room or vacated the restaurant earlier, but I had that same damn feeling that I was going to see him again. Maybe I’d seen him already. I shook the cobwebby feeling off and noticed that Kid Loki was sticking to my side like glue, no longer happy-go-lucky. Just out of the corner of my vision, a green car peeled out of the lot, revving its engine and roaring up the street.

“What’s up?” I asked Loki. He just shook his head wildly and pressed on.

Mitch looked at him, then at me, then at him, and then back to me. “O...kay. Find a place to stay yet?”

“I will when I check out that map again. Or we can just meander around town for a while until we find a motel or something like it.” I answered while trying to quietly dissuade Loki from pulling on the arm of my jacket. He ran ahead to the Impala like the devil was chasing him and hopped into the back seat, diving below blankets which had previously been graced with the purple-pink evening light.

I looked at Mitch, almost offended. “Didn’t you lock the doors?”

“I’m sure I did,” he said, puzzled. “‘Most positive, in fact.”

A sudden realization had us both running to the back seat with Loki to make sure he was okay, shouting at him to open the door again.

“What? What?!” He sounded panicked and as he flung the door back open. I tossed the keys to Mitch, who went around to the trunk and rifled through it while I beat my fists on all the blankets, and then scrambled to the driver’s and passenger’s sides of the vehicle to make sure no one was inside. I kept thinking I’d see Grey Eyes in there, although miraculously, no one appeared. I took my baseball bat out just to be safe, and leaned it on my hip as I tilted my head back to ask Mitch if someone had been through the trunk.

Loki yanked furiously on my jacket. “(Y/N), what is it?”

“Nothing, apparently. Thought someone might be in here, since the door was unlocked. Sorry.” I gave him a grim smile and went around the car, locking and closing doors. Mitch shut the trunk as gently as he could and handed me back my keys with a shake of the head.

“Nobody,” he said.

“Good.” I breathed a sigh of relief and finally felt settled. Loki, on the other hand, still looked terrified, and as I swung myself into the driver’s seat to take Sixty on a motel-viewing cruise, he climbed into the passenger seat beside me, whiter than a sheet and speechless.

Mitch started his rust-brown pickup and rolled out of the lot. I followed at a reasonable distance. Loki was busy looking awfully frightened by the little shout-and-search we’d just thrown together, but little by little, he seemed to put up a shield to protect himself from that fear. Of course, I wouldn’t have known it, because I was watching the road. Most of the time.

He sat still for a while, and then, seemingly out of nowhere, put his face into his hands. I kept the car going at a slower 30 miles per hour while glancing at him every few seconds. “Hey, kiddo, I’m sorry about that. We just had to make sure the car was safe, is all.”

“I unlocked the door,” he murmured to himself, and then peeled his face from his hands to look at me with those petrified glass green eyes. “(Y/N), I’m scared. Of the night. I always feel like there’s...” He trailed off and didn’t continue, curling up further in his seat.

“Well, it’s within reason.” I said, unsure how to comfort him properly. “If it helps, I’m scared of the night now, too.”

“It doesn’t.”

The Ford pickup signaled right at the next intersection, so I put on my blinker as well. “I don’t know what to tell you, Kid, I really don’t. I am sorry, though. I should have been more calm about it. Like Mitch.”

He hunkered down in his seat even further, looking absolutely miserable.

“But hey. Let’s start with two things.” I hurried to make him feel better. “One, you’ll be with your mom soon. You’ll be completely safe, then. We’re almost as north as north gets. And two, we’re not sleeping in the car tonight. That’ll be a nice change, huh?”

Silence. The Loki at the gas station was back, sullen and silent and underneath the surface, very very afraid.

“See?” I poked an index finger over the steering wheel, gesturing to where Mitch had just pulled into yet another parking lot. I was beginning to wonder how many parking lots the entirety of the continent had, and how many square miles of pitted asphalt it added up to. Don’t take math classes in college, kids, it messes with your perception. “Nice place.”

The nice place I was referring to definitely could have been nicer, but for a run down old-timey town, it was alright. The building was squat and low and had been whitewashed at some point, but looked dreary in the pinking sunset. The roof was made of what appeared to be green tile, which was a nice touch on an otherwise homely motel shack. The blinking neon sign in the front window did indeed say vacancy, and so it was to be our final destination for the night.

“Grab your stuff, start putting everything together.” I instructed him. Over the course of the trip, Loki really hadn’t taken anything out of his bag but clothes and a toothbrush, which was natural given that he didn’t exactly have any other earthly possessions. But I almost felt bad, watching him gather up the scraps he would take to the motel room. His stuffed husky pup, a few pairs of loose socks, a pillow, a bedsheet. I stepped outside and began shaking out the blankets we’d had in the back seat so I could fold them up for our return trip, which I figured was going to be soon. Maybe even as soon as tomorrow.

Return trip. The gravity of the situation settled on me once more as I watched Loki sit in the passenger seat with his little green carpet bag, thinking about what would happen to him once his mother came to get him. If she did.

She would, I reminded myself. She was a good mother.

How would that even work? I found that I’d been daydreaming, fantasizing, almost; about a glowing gold woman descending from the heavens to retrieve her son. Maybe that was the truth. But how would I know for sure what was going to happen? What if I brought him to the wrong place? What if I didn’t make it in time? What if I didn’t want to make it in time?

But everything else had come on time, I thought to myself. Every other weird feeling had come in handy, somehow. To me or to Loki. And I wasn’t sure if it was Loki’s charm or some other seidr trick he was pulling, but I wondered if it wasn’t his mother telling us subconsciously what to do. It seemed like a godly power. It seemed like something a good, holy mother would do to see that her kid arrived home safely.

And what about him? I didn’t know if I’d be able to let him go. Over the past near-five days we’d spent together, I really did feel like he was my kid, in a way. It was weird, yeah, but he was weird. I was weird. And it was practically like we were made for each other, mom-and-kid. I loved him a lot—more than anyone, really.

“(Y/N),” somebody called.

I came back down to earth and realized it was Mitch doing the calling, with Loki at his side, green eyes dodging wildly as if searching for something in the treeline.

Mitch dangled two sets of motel keys in the air and pulled that little trick where he pretended to drop them and then caught them again. “Rooms eleven and twelve, hope you don’t mind sharing a wall.”

“Not at all,” I called back, grabbing my bag and bat, slamming the car doors and making sure all were locked up tight once more. “Thanks. Who’s at front desk?”

“Guy named Bill. Seems pretty okay. Here.” Once I’d marched up the steps to the little walkway connecting all the rooms’ outer doors, he gave me the key marked ‘12’ in a pretty, cursive-looking font. I thanked him, took Loki gently by the hand, and we went to our respective rooms. Mitch gave a little wave before we ducked into the doorway, which I would have liked to return if my hands weren’t full.

The motel room wasn’t nearly as ugly as the outside of the building. In fact, it retained a lot of what must have been its original beauty; adding a very friendly aura to comfort all those who stayed there. The walls were painted a sunflower yellow that looked rather dark as the room was unlit except for a bedside lamp, and there were two small beds side by side on one end of the room, each dressed with a flowered quilt and two pillows. As for the walls, there were a few tiny framed pictures, one of a sailboat and one of a charming little meadow. There was also a small, boxy window near the outer door with a blackout curtain, and a dark brown wicker bureau across from the beds. Three other doors provided access to the world outside of the room, one of which led to the hall, one to a small closet with barely enough room for someone to get their shoulder in, and one which led to the tiniest bathroom I’d ever seen in my life.

At least it has a shower, I thought to myself, but my brain countered that it would probably be easier to bathe with the water from the sink or take a dip in the lake than attempt to contort myself into that glass cage. Yeesh. I returned to the main room, admiring the warm yellow color. It was comforting and made me think of a sunrise somewhere in the east. Maybe over a field of flowers. If I thought hard enough, I could almost smell the sweetness of dew-covered grass and daisies.

Loki was curled up on one of the beds, still in his madras shirt and jeans. He didn’t even have the covers pulled back. I figured the best thing I could do for a scared kid was pretend like everything was alright, because generally, that’s what you’re supposed to do. Even if the kid can see right through you, it helps them to think that somebody in their vicinity has an idea of what’s supposed to be done. Of what’s supposed to be normal. I hoped it would offer some actual comfort, but then again, I didn’t know what might. I was at a loss for words. I was tired of this insane road trip and everything that came with it, but I wasn’t tired of him.

“I’m going to get ready for bed,” I said, and there was no response, so I gently tapped him on the shoulder. “That okay?”

He nodded his assent.

Shortly thereafter, I found myself contorting into several different awkward positions to catch all of the lukewarm water careening out of the shower head at about fifty different angles. My graze wound was healing well, and the thin scab flinched a few times under the water, but it was mostly okay. The water hitting the scab-studded gravel burn on my stomach wasn’t the nicest thing ever, either, but that too wasn’t enough to take some Tylenol for. The soap that had been resting on the ledge slipped out of my grip about a dozen times and I was sure I had a sizable welt forming on my head from where I’d whacked it on the glass trying to reach down and grab said soap. At least it was worth the trouble; it smelled delicious and could have been considered nose candy, if ever there were such a thing.

As I bathed quickly and quietly in the aroma of oatmeal, cinnamon and some third leafy thing, I thought again about what would happen when Loki was returned to his parents.

To be honest, I had no clue what I was going to do. Up until this point I’d had menial bouts of and with the insanity of this journey, but I really hadn’t considered the destination. And that was just as dumb and crazy of me as anything else. I didn’t want to, though. I loved Kid like he was my own son and no matter how many times my own brain told me to shut up, or that I shouldn’t be telling myself that, or that it would hurt too much to let him go if I formed an attachment like that, I knew it was true. It had been true since the first meal we shared together. It had been true since he fell asleep on the couch with me and it had been true since he stuck out his tongue at me in childish rebellion.

The more I thought about it, the more I started to tear up. For the longest time, I hadn’t had anything. It was unbearable trying to find something to live for after Punk. I recognized everything that came to me and I had little to no trouble being grateful, but it was only ever topical enjoyment, it was never deep-seated joy or some kind of beautiful, reckless abandon. I always recognized the need to forgive, to forget, and to move on, but I couldn’t make myself do it. I couldn’t help myself. And there was no one I really trusted to help me out. There was no one there. Theodora was like my second mother, but even she couldn’t take care of me all the time; she had a business to run. Most days, I was on my own: I woke up, ate a substandard breakfast, went to work, came home, ate a substandard dinner, cried in the shower, went to bed, and rinsed and repeated until I felt sick. All the color had been drained out of my life. Well, not exactly—more like I had resolved to ignore it, so it said “fine” and left for good; just like I had, driving home after punching that poor girl.

And so one might wonder what I was doing in that park. I set the soap down and tried to scrub the tears out of my eyes, but the oatmeal fragrance only burned them and made them water more. Yes, one would wonder what I was doing out there. Why I’d signed off my car to somebody else. Why I’d been sitting on that bench at that time, watching everybody go about their business.

'Stop it,' my brain said. I was crying too loudly to hear.

When your everything is taken away from you, you don’t stop to listen to reason. You don’t stop to think how you can rebuild. The smartest people know that you should rebuild, and at least give it some attempt, but the rest of us are plain dumb and don’t know how to play the cards they’ve been dealt. What card do you play against the punk who always told you not to be a coward, but only reinforced your weak nature every time he said it? You play the cake card. What card do you play against the stupid whore who could be your twin and probably has twins now anyway? You play the sucker-punch card. What card do you play when your house is empty? When your phone doesn’t ring? When you feel sick to your stomach all the time? When you’re so alone you could drown in it? When the nothingness consumes you and you are suffocating in that pit of afterlove that takes every coward who succumbs to it?

I leaned against the damp shower wall behind the faucet head, sobbing openly and not minding in the slightest when the water from the shower ran into my eyes. What card do you play? What card do you play?

You play the drowning card, or the hanging card, or the shooting card, or the missing card. You become useless in everyday life. You fall off the map, completely. You leave your Chevrolet Impala in your next door neighbor’s name because she looks like she might have wanted that car when she was a kid, and you take off. You wait for Lamar or somebody to come collect your body. You wait for that feeling of redemption that will never come; not when you’re stuck in the bowels of hell. You meet the other side, because anything is better than dealing with the pain of wasting years of your time with someone you drank in like the moonlight. With someone who would have sacrificed you in a heartbeat. Who did.

Except—

Except when a kid wanders into your life.

I found myself whispering a mantra, the same one I’d heard Loki repeating in the car and in my house. “Beautiful móðir, bless okkarr heima. Beautiful móðir, bless okkarr heima. Beautiful móðir...”

It took a while, but eventually I stopped crying. It was shortly after the water ran cold, having been exhausted of its feeble heat source. I bundled myself up in a towel and sat on the toilet lid, teeth chattering and wishing I could hear the rumble of a heat register somewhere. But the heat didn’t come on, and I wasn’t getting any warmer, so I dried myself off, bandaged my wounds (both literally and figuratively) and got dressed for the nighttime once more. The rest of my nightly routine was a blur. I think my brain, in a moment of kindness, had shut off the reminiscing and thinking function. But it was activated again when I wandered out to the soft yellow room with Loki lying on his bed.

He was in pretty much the same position I’d left him in, curled up on his right side and facing the outer door to the motel room. His green eyes were staring blankly at the pattern on the blackout curtain and he had a hand tucked under his head, preferring his own comfort to the two pillows stacked at the top of the twin-sized bed. He only moved his eyes to look at me when I turned off the bedside lamp, weakly pulled back the covers on my bed, and slipped into them with a relief I had not felt in years. Dread still remained for the day ahead, but for now, I allowed myself to feel emptied of all the nastiness. The sheets were comfortingly cool and sheltered my bandaged body. For a second, it felt as if the pillow were cradling my head; which was starting to ache like I’d been hit by Mitch’s truck.

I closed my eyes. The room was silent, all except for the ticking of a clock, perhaps on Loki’s nightstand. I was about to slip into another one of those blissful, dreamless sleeps when I heard his voice cut across the darkness.

“Aren’t you going to make me brush my teeth?”

“No,” I said, and was ashamed at how hollow my voice sounded.

“Why not?”

“Because.”

“That’s not an answer.”

I grit my teeth and wished my nose wouldn’t get so stuffy from having a good cry, because then maybe I’d sound normal. Oh well. “Loki, the bathroom’s right over there, you can brush your teeth if you want.”

There was a silence during which he seemed to be considering this.

“...will you come with me?”

“Loki.” I turned to look at him, although I could barely even see his outline in the dark room. “It’s not even five feet away.”

“Come with me,” he insisted.

I sighed and rolled out of bed, feeling the rough carpet and hard concrete below touch my feet. On went the lamp again. “Fine. Make it quick.”

That he did. It couldn’t have taken more than five minutes behind that door for him to go through his entire nighttime routine, pajama change included. He swung open the door wildly and before shutting off the lights and scrambling back to bed, we made brief eye contact. I wondered how I looked to him. Probably a little bit like a monster; maybe a shapeshifter. Did shapeshifters have red eyes?

I trudged back to bed with my eyelids only half open, and repeated my movement of sliding under the covers and getting comfortable, only to hear his voice again.

“(Y/N)?”

“What is it now?”

He paused for such a long time I nearly asked him 'what' again. “I’m thirsty.”

I just sighed and got up to retrieve a bottle of water from my bag. It was one of three, the last we’d had in the case in Sixty’s trunk. He eagerly downed the entire thing—at least, it sounded like he did. Before I climbed back into bed, I asked him in a clipped tone if there was anything else he needed.

“Yes.” He answered without elaborating, and I sat down on the edge of my bed with sagged shoulders, rubbing my eyes until I saw little sparkles in my vision.

“Would you like to tell me what that thing might be?”

This kid was so full of elongated pauses you would have trouble believing that he could talk at all. “Can I have a hug?”

This instantly broke any hesitation I had for being his little midnight servant. “Of course, kiddo.”

I took two steps in his direction before slamming my shin against the metal bed frame, and while it took significant energy to hold in the curse words that otherwise would have come streaming out, nothing soothed the feeling more than Kid leaning into my arms and squeezing me close to him like he really needed me there. For the moment, I was Mom, and that was all that really mattered to either of us.

I stroked his curly black hair, though it blended in perfectly with the pitch black of the room. “Night scares you, huh?”

I felt him nod, his reply muffled by my shirt. “That’s when all the monsters come out.”

I thought about it and realized it was true, to some extent. “What about that shapeshifter?”

“Dark,” he mumbled. “Thought it was night time. Just rain, though.”

I held him there for a few more moments, smoothing his hair down and ruffling it back up again. He didn’t seem to mind.

“Why were you crying?”

Ah, here we go with the impertinent questions, I thought to myself. My brain scolded me. “I just wasn’t feeling too good, is all. Don’t worry about me.”

I couldn’t see the look on his face, but I felt his head leave my chest, so he must have been giving me a signature sarcastic look. I was sorry I had to miss it.

“Don’t pull that with me,” he said, in a perfect imitation of my voice. I hugged him closer.

“Bless your seidr, Loki. And bless your mother for teaching it to you. And bless you.”

“I didn’t sneeze, but thank you,” he said, and I almost began to cry again, but with joy this time.

“You’re a good kid, Loki. A very good kid. Do you hear me?” I took him by the shoulders and tried to see his face in the dark. I thought I could make out one emerald eye. “No matter what anybody says to you, or calls you, no matter how many times you get shoved aside or told off because Thor’s the nicer one, you’re a good kid. You have to know that.”

“O...kay?” He seemed more confused than scared, now, which I guessed was alright. If you can’t make ‘em happy, confuse the hell out of ‘em.

I couldn’t say much else. I was too afraid I’d start crying again, so we just sat there on his bed, hugging, rocking gently back and forth. Somewhere out in the motel yard, a moonbeam pierced the night sky and rode down from the heavens like I imagined Loki’s real mother might. The glow even managed to evade the blackout curtain, sending calm, silver light into a small corner of the room.

“I’m really scared,” he whispered after a long time.

I was silent for a moment, but spoke when I felt him shift to look up at me. “I am too. But that won’t stop me from trying to protect you. Okay? You’re gonna see your real mother soon.”

Loki took this in, clasping his hands behind my back and hugging me tighter. My side gave a little twinge, but I ignored it. “Still. ...can you stay with me?”

I looked over my shoulder at the rumpled covers of my bed, but before I could even think of something to say, Loki squeezed even tighter and added,  
“Please?”

His voice was edging on desperate and I tried my best to calm him down. “What’s the matter?”

“You know those feelings you get? The weird ones that you can’t really explain?” He asked, pulling on my t-shirt and prodding me to lay down beside him. I propped myself up on one elbow and swung my legs out to stretch under the flowered quilt.

“Mhm?”

“They’re not ever wrong, are they? They always serve a purpose.” He sounded anxious. “And it’s kind of a knot in your stomach, but all over your skin, too, like somebody’s dragging silk thread along your spine. You get the notion to do something, anything, because something’s about to happen.”

“Yes?” So he knew what it was—to some extent, at least. Interesting.

“It’s a premonition. I think it’s stronger seidr, maybe Mother’s, maybe not. But I have… I have a bad premonition. And I don’t know what’s going to happen. I just know I’m waiting for it to.” Once more, he buried his head in my collarbone and curled up at my side as we laid in wait for whatever it could be. A thought occurred to me.

“Are you sure it’s a premonition?”

“Yes,” he answered immediately.

“How long has it been going on?”

“The longest one yet. It’s… it’s… what time is it?”

“About ten thirty,” I answered.

He seemed to be counting. “Hours. I don’t know how many. But I heard a loud sound when we went out to the parking lot and that’s when it started.”

“Loud sound…” I murmured aloud to myself and wracked my brain for any wrong feelings I’d discovered at the diner, other than the shivers Grey Eyes gave me and the little fiasco with the unlocked door. Wait. Unless… “Did you mean the car that backfired when it was driving out to the street?”

“Was it a loud popping noise?”

“Yeah,” I answered again, metaphorically scratching my head and wondering why that of all things would give him the heebie-jeebies.

“Did it sound like Mitch’s gun?”

Now that stopped me in my tracks. Well. Mental tracks, anyway. It dawned on me, then, what was “wrong” with him. “Oh, honey. I don’t think that’s a premonition.”

“It is!” He gripped my t-shirt in his fists and held on like I was a life preserver in a storm. “It has to be! It has to be!”

“But nothing’s happened in the hours that you felt it, right? Does it really feel like silk being dragged up your spine? Or does it just feel like it’s a fear you can’t fight?”

I listened to him consider it, but he still seemed doubtful. “If it’s not a premonition, what would it be? Everything I feel is for a reason! It has to be!”

“Not always.” I began to comb through his hair with my fingers again, trying to soothe him as Theodora had once soothed me. “Sometimes your head gets stuck in premonition mode and freaks out all the time, which, as you would know, doesn’t feel great.”

“But what if another monster comes? What if those men find us? What if the shapeshifter-”

I shushed him and pulled the warm blankets over us both. “We’ll hide here, and if worst comes to worst, I still have that bat. And you still have your seidr. That little fire trick you do.”

A green flame lit up the darkness, the tiny thing licking its way up his left pinkie finger. I saw his worried expression and without another thought, leaned down to press a soft kiss to his forehead.

“I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid enough to leave you defenseless. Not after all we’ve survived through.” I murmured into the curls just above his forehead, and he seemed to relax a little. “You’re going to be okay, kiddo. Just you wait. Just you wait until you see your mother again.”

He was brave enough to give me a timid smile and then extinguished the green flame, leaving the bedroom to its pitch black darkness once more. “(Y/N)?”

“Yeah, Loki?” I tilted my head back and yawned, feeling more tired than I ever had before. It was a good tired, though.

“I love you.”

I smiled, eyes closed, too exhausted emotionally to even shed another tear at the wonderful, wonderful feeling of finally being a mom, a real mom, whose kid loves her unconditionally. I only had the energy to comb my fingers through his hair one more time and let them rest at the base of his skull, cradling his head as if he were a baby before we fell into that mindless sleep I was hoping to reach earlier. Somehow, my voice reached out from my throat before we dropped off into slumber:

“I love you too, Loki.”

And that was that. I’d found my redemption.

What card do you play?

Love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this installment of my latest favorite work! Is there anything that needs patching up? Catch any grammar mistakes? Just want to tell me how wackadoo of a storyline it is? I would love to hear anything you have to say! For now, though, have a nice day :) <3


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a cliche statement, everything... is not as it seems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooo boy, I had fun writing this one. Despicable fun, actually. Hope you enjoy reading this installment! :)

It was only a mindless sleep for so long. Eventually, a dream came to life inside my skull, which was a sure sign that things were returning to normal, bit by bit. I cringed at the thought.

In the dream, I was in an oddly familiar forest. There were no sounds from creatures around me, not of the earthly variety, anyway. It was quiet and dark out, but something was eliciting a strange bluish glow from the branches of the trees around me. With a start, I realized how tall they were. These pines could have easily cleared 100 feet, maybe even 150.

Without a second notion of what to do—and that was another thing I realized; there was no premonition, no intuition, no motivation—I took a step forward. Then another. And another. Soon, I was walking soundlessly through the brush, keeping an eye out for anything unordinary. A while into my little journey, there came a scuffling noise from behind me, a sound so menial but crashingly loud against the serene forest silence that I whirled around immediately to see what had made it. Nothing was there, of course. Horror movie stuff, I tell you. I wondered vaguely if my brain was trying to scare me awake to get oxygen—I’d read somewhere that your brain does that, if you’re not breathing deeply enough during sleep.

But no. The dream continued. I turned back around to continue making my way down the forest path, but there was suddenly a very large cottage in front of me that hadn’t been there before. Like, there was no way I could have missed this thing. It wasn’t on the horizon or in a far off clearing. One second, there was dense foliage, I turned around to see what made the noise, turned back, and there was this house. In a clearing. In the woods.

I looked at it. It looked at me.

There was also something familiar about this house. I rather thought it was somewhat like Tee’s 1950s rambler, but that wasn’t quite it. Maybe I’d seen it in a storybook, somewhere. I was enticed by the front door to just have a quick peek, and then move on.

I wandered forward on the bluelit grass, climbing the creaking porch stairs to where the front door stood, gleaming white in what I guessed was starlight. Oddly enough, it seemed as if it were… salivating.

Against my better judgement, I reached out for the door handle and tried to enter the cottage. No such luck. The doorknob was stuck fast, and had something covering it. Something sticky.

I lifted my hand to my face to see what the substance was, and gave it a hesitant lick. Obviously, I was not lucidly dreaming, otherwise I would have gotten off of that porch the second I recognized the house. The substance was sweet, and certainly very sticky. It was cake icing.

Before I could even scream, the witch’s cottage from Hansel and Gretel swallowed me whole, and into the darkness I plunged. Somewhere in the falling black I saw skeletons dancing; a little girl, a little boy, a man whose canine was missing, whose chest was covered with a sagging black leather jacket—before my closed and shaking eyelids they danced, screaming and singing but never quite managing to sound happy.

“(Y/N)...”

I opened my mouth to respond, but it felt as if my words were being sucked away by the endless black wind.

“(Y/N)... (Y/N).”

Finally, my vision soothed itself into a calming black oblivion. I began to feel lighter.

“(Y/N)!”

“What? What is it?” I gasped and bolted upright, instinctively ducking my head to avoid hitting the ceiling of the Impala. But I wasn’t in the Impala—I was in a yellow room full of flowers and sunlight… and with a rather concerned-looking Kid at my side.

“What were you dreaming about?” His eyebrows knit themselves together, green eyes darting around my face with worry.

I flopped back onto the bed and closed my eyes, stretching out as far as I could, letting out a properly inhumane noise and a few joint cracks. “I can’t remember. Something… with a house, I think.”

“Hm.” He mulled over this for a little while, waiting for me to get out of bed. This was not likely to happen in the next fifteen minutes, so he decided to speed things up a little, introducing the promise I’d made the night before: “You said we could go for a walk in the forest today…”

“That I did,” I yawned profusely and smacked my lips together. “I’ll be up and at ‘em in a second.”

Five minutes later, I was awoken once more by Loki jumping on the bed.

“Up!” He commanded, poking my exposed shoulder. I snuggled further into the blankets. “Come on, get up! I want to go see the forest!”

“Mmm, sure.” I said with my eyes closed. “What time is it?”

“Six,” He retorted indignantly.

“Yeah, give me an hour, okay?”

He hopped off the bed and was quiet for a minute, which gave me some peace of mind before my lovely, warm, soft blanket was torn away from me with the swiftness of a tornado.

“Okay,” I hollered, just quiet enough so that I wouldn’t wake up our lovely southern neighbor in room 12. “Get dressed, then.”

Loki assumed a perfect deadpan expression and pointedly gestured to his neat and tidy appearance. He looked like he had the first day I met him, white shirt, pine-green shorts, little pilgrim shoes and all. I would have felt a pang of desperation to keep him as my own child if I weren’t so upset about being shaken out of bed at the ungodly hour of sunrise.

“Fine,” I muttered, mostly to myself. “I’ll only be a minute.”

“You’d better be,” He called as I grabbed a change of clothes and headed to the miniature bathroom of perhaps two square feet total.

In a matter of multiple minutes (to Kid Loki’s unfortunate chagrin), we were outside on the little walk between motel rooms, ready to venture into the lightening woods. Just in case, I’d brought my bag and my baseball bat with me, but much like in my subconscious, I knew something was missing. There was no ulterior motive; no premonition for us to follow. I felt vulnerable, as if my sixth sense had been stripped from me. Although maybe this meant that trouble would cease to follow us.

I took one look at Loki happily skipping up to the border of the forest and decided that this was probably not true. Even though he was just a kid, he had a huge invisible target on his back, being so far from his home. So did I, being a woman, alone with a child in unfamiliar territory. Which is why it perturbed me that I didn’t have my sense for danger anymore. It had vanished overnight, leaving me unnecessarily paranoid about every noise I heard around me in the woods. Thank God the sunlight came streaming through, though—it was beautiful, and probably the only thing capable of soothing my anxieties. Birds were chitter-chattering over breakfast, squirrels were darting this way and that, and the trees stood tall like silent, protective sentinels guarding some secret thing. Perhaps the fountain of youth. As beautiful as this forest was, I considered it to be completely plausible that there was some mystic well in here, full of magical water.

'Okay, now you’re really getting weird,' my brain mentioned thoughtfully. 'Feel lost without your sixth sense, don’t ya?'

I ignored the statement, twirled my bat, and did another once over of the surrounding brush and trees. No threat to be seen; unless brilliant sunshine and dust motes counted, and they most certainly didn’t. Well, unless the dust motes were of the allergy-causing variety, in which case, I would sorely wish I’d stolen the box of tissues from the motel room.

But no matter. All was calm and quiet and honestly, as peaceful as life had ever been in the past five days. Loki was content to walk at my side for a little while, holding my hand rather than the sleeve of my jacket. He pointed out a red wildflower; I showed him a little black bird. He leapt forward to pick up a pinecone or an interesting rock, and I let him fill his pockets with as many forest artifacts as he could find. The sunlight, buttery yellow, flew into all corners of the dirt and branches. Slowly, I began to feel the semblance of safety. It was a strange thing that I had been living without for the past few days.

As we walked, I wondered what kind of life I would return to. If I’m being honest, that’s what I was most worried about. After someone unwittingly provides you with a short-term will to live, and in that time you recognize all the beautiful things in life—

I turned to look as a tiger swallow butterfly flitted past my ear, and in a hushed tone, I pointed it out to Loki. He looked on in pure awe, eyes dancing like little green bottle caps.

—after you recognize all the beautiful things in life, it’s hard to know where you stand. Obviously, you like beautiful things, and would much prefer to be alive for them. But in beautiful things there lies minimal, if not lack of, purpose. How am I supposed to live for the sake of a tiger swallow butterfly?

'You could get one as a pet,' my brain chided.

Yeah, right. I’d probably do something wrong and accidentally kill it somehow. I thought back.

'The fact that you are using the words ‘something’ and ‘somehow’ suggests that you have no real clue how you might do such a thing. You just don’t want to admit that you want to live again.'

I told my brain to shut up.

In any case, it was true. After having lived so long in the depths of what can only be called Conformist Hell, it is very hard to turn around and say you want to live again. It’s possible—but difficult.

What will I do with myself? I wondered. It would be hard not to fall into that meaningless cycle again. But it would almost be inevitable. I’d fall back into the comfort of my own bed, not even realizing it was a comfort, tired to the bone only to not sleep at all and have to get up after a few hours to go back to a meaningless job to get meaningless money to feed my meaningless self so I could do more meaningless work.

Loki turned back from the sunlit path ahead and ran to me to show me a particularly oddly-shaped rock, which resembled half of a heart. He asked me to keep an eye out for the other half, and I promised I would.

Still. I wanted to stay. Not for the meaningless life, of course.

But to find meaning.

At this point, Loki yanked me from my thoughts once again by pointing ahead and saying, “Look!”

The horizon loomed, pinkish-orange, before us. We were almost at a cliffside overlooking Split Lake, which now glittered with the resplendence of sunlit jewelry. I whistled. “Wow, would you look at that…?”

Nature would have it no other way, it seemed. There was a boulder on the lookout point, positioned perfectly so that two people could sit and watch the sun rise. So, Loki and I sat, dusting pine needles off of the bottoms of our shoes. My red Converse came to a rest next to his little black shoes, and I sighed happily.

No words were needed. Until they were, of course.

“Can I tell you something?” Loki whispered. The dawn seemed to quiet a little to make way for the Something.

I continued to watch the water swirling below, ebbing around the rocks on the shore. “Sure thing, Kid.”

He scooted closer to my side and leaned in, the way a kid leans in to tell a parent their deepest, darkest secret—which may well be that they have eaten two extra cookies without permission. I laughed to myself, thinking of the entire package of fudge cookies he’d consumed the other day.

“Don’t laugh,” he whined, rocking back on his heels.

“I won’t. I won’t.” I reassured him. “I just thought of something funny, don’t worry.”

“Okay.” He leaned in to my ear again and whispered as if he thought I was deaf,

“Today is my birthday.”

“What?” I said loudly, scaring a few birds away from their perches on a nearby blue spruce. “Your birthday?”

“Shhh!” Loki pressed a finger to his lips with a fierce look on his face. “Yes, now be quiet!”

“Sorry,” I murmured, partially to the birds squabbling and flopping away from us, but also to the child beside me. “Why do we have to be quiet about it?”  
“Because,” he said with an air of finality.

I thought about it for a while. Then I tilted my head to the side and pressed my cheek into his curly black hair. “Happy birthday, Loki.”  
I could practically hear him smiling.

“So.” I slammed the trunk of the Impala closed, not unkindly, but also not without the car letting out a sort of ‘harrumph’. I patted its taillight apologetically and turned back to whom I was speaking to. “I’ve already talked to Mitch, and he thinks it’s a good idea. We’ve got the snow tires, we just need to get a few groceries and we’ll be off into the woods.” Here, I wiggled my fingers for magical effect, and hopped up the leaning porch stairs into room 11. “Just one more day of riding in the car, bud. Aren’t you excited?”

Loki munched thoughtfully on a bowl of cereal, sitting at the very edge of his bed in the motel room. We’d returned to a neatly cleaned room after a short hike—apparently housekeeping had been by, which I guess was a good sign in a place as ramshackle as this. Homely, but with good manners.

One could say the same for you, my brain snickered.

“I have a few questions.” Loki said, before shoving another spoonful of Cap’n Crunch into his mouth. “Do I get to keep my clothes?”

“Well, they’re yours, so…”

“I mean the ones we got from Tee.”

“Yeah. We did get them for you. They are now your official property.” I myself was having a few granola bars and a juice box for breakfast. (You’re never too old for these sorts of kindergarten snacks, I tell you.)

“And Fenris?”

“Yes, you can keep your puppy friend.”

Loki looked at me suddenly, in a striking sort of way, like he was trying to figure me out. “How will you remember me?”

“What?” I asked, accidentally dropping granola on the bedspread. I swept it into my palm and quickly deposited it in the nearest trash can, still waiting in mild surprise for an explanation.

Loki crunched another spoonful of the cereal so loudly I thought he might be eating the bowl, too. “When I return to my family, how will you remember me?”

“Kid, I think the real question is ‘how could I forget you?’.” I said pointedly. He looked unconvinced. “If I don’t get put in an asylum when this is all over with, that is. I will never forget you. Even if I somehow brainwash myself into thinking this was some sort of dream or really, really vivid hallucination, I will never forget you. These have been the most insane, adventure-filled five days of my entire life.” I sipped at my juice box and leaned against the wicker bureau, watching as Loki kicked his legs back and forth hopefully. I could almost hear the thup-thup of his shins against Sixty’s dashboard.

Man, today would be the last day I’d get to hear that.

“But don’t you want anything to remember me by?”

I thought for a moment. “How about one of those pine cones you picked up?”

He looked confused for a moment, but then brightened, and dug through his pockets in search of a suitable pinecone. I laughed to myself a little and took a few minutes to pack things away in smaller bags we could easily carry to the front seat of the car, wondering if Mitch was getting impatient at all. It was already nine in the morning, and he’d been up since four, being a ‘farm boy’ and all. I’d asked him what he’d done all morning when we came back to find him in the lobby, and his answer was “getting friendly”. The guy at the counter—Bill, I think his name was—just laughed.

Nah, I thought to myself. Not impatient. He’s probably busy watching the weather forecast for the millionth time.

“Here you go!” Loki exclaimed suddenly, and I turned to see him presenting me with a large, round pinecone. It looked like it had been sunbleached, and was quite dry. It really was a wonder that it hadn’t fallen apart in his pocket.

“Thank you, Loki,” I said, taking hold of the object. Although it looked brittle, it certainly was strong. I gave it a small squeeze and smiled.

“It’ll stay like that forever.” Loki intoned wisely, staring at it with those glass green eyes. “I made sure of it.” He turned to me and smiled warmly, just like the sun outside the window. “You’ll be sure to remember me forever?”

“Of course.” I responded. “Now, how about we get back to Mitch? I’m sure he’d like to be entertained by more stories from the great heavens of Asgard.”

Loki stuck his tongue out at me and the pinecone miraculously levitated out of my hands and knocked me lightly on the forehead. “At least he listens.”

“I listen!” I protested, but Loki was giggling to himself already.

“I know,” he said, allowing the pinecone to fall back into my waiting palms. “But he’s a better listener.”

Yeah, he is, I conceded to myself.

Suddenly, an idea occurred to me. “Hey, Loki, how do you celebrate your birthday at home?”

He gave me an unreadable look, and it seemed as if he were judging whether it was safe or not to tell me such a thing; which was an odd judgment to have to make on the subject of birthdays. “Well… usually, there’s not much of a celebration at all.”

“Ah.” I said, nodding knowingly. “Like the Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

He raised an eyebrow in bewilderment. “Okay, sure, whatever a witness of Jehovah is. Thor’s birthday is generally more of a celebration. Or, well, I feel like it is, anyway.” Loki looked away and began fiddling with the knobs on the bureau, feigning interest so he wouldn’t have to meet my gaze. “I guess it isn’t, as you would say, “a big deal”. But he always got a banquet to himself, and his friends would have the run of the palace for the day.” His green eyes lifted for a second to stare, dreamily, off into the distance. “Sif would play the most daring games, you know. She’s a… a…”

“Firecracker?” I asked, thinking of some girls I knew back in the day.

He nodded enthusiastically, still entranced by the daydreams of his daring wheat girl. “That’s exactly right. I’m not sure what a fire cracker is, or what it would taste like, but that’s exactly right. Bright, and snappy…”

“But your birthday,” I prodded, not looking forward to an hour-long spiel about why Sif was the most adventurous, amazing girl, and how she was so absolutely endearing and lovable and would make a good wife someday—yuk yuk yuk. He nodded and continued.

“My mother—” He looked up, strangely, and asked whether I knew her name. I said I did not. “—Frigga, then. My mother Frigga is really the only one who celebrates my birthday with me.” He went back to fiddling with the bureau knobs. “She makes the most wonderful apple spice cake, and usually allows me to choose dinner the night of. It’s not really anyone’s favorite day of the year. I always try to ask for something disgusting, or just something Thor doesn’t like.” Loki broke off here to snicker a little.  
“Real trickster, aren’t you?” I had to smile myself. “But don’t you have to eat it, too?”

“Well, it does help that I happen to like smoked eel. That never fails to make Thor gag.” He burst out into giggles at this, but I was still stuck on the eel bit. Eugh. Maybe the idea sprouting in my head wouldn’t work out after all.

“Does your mother… does she actually eat the meals you ask for?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. Never without trying to hide the look on her face, though. She’ll laugh when Thor spits something out, but then Father gives her a look, and she’s back to…” Loki shrugged, quieting up again. “Back to eating normally, I guess.”

There was a minute pause in the conversation, and I felt bad for interrupting Loki’s laughter. “So, if you were given that chance today… what meal would you ask for?”

He looked at me, a little bit confused. “Won’t you be returning me in time for dinner?”

“Hardly enough time to request a meal, isn’t it?” I pointed out, and he agreed dejectedly.

“No getting Thor to gag tonight, I suppose.” He sighed, and thought about it for a few minutes. “I think I’d pick…”

I leaned forward from my stance by the outer motel door imperceptibly, waiting to see if perhaps my idea would be able to sprout further.

“Macaroni and cheese,” he said softly, with that dreamy look returning to his eyes. “And bean salsa, too, with tomato. And instead of an apple spice cake, I’d want a stack of Belgian waffles with raspberries on top.”

At a loss for words, I had a miniature flashback to the first few meals we’d shared with each other. Macaroni and cheese. Bean salsa. Waffles, too. It was enough to make a grown woman cry; and this one was going to seriously need that box of tissues.

“It’s just that I’m going to miss you,” Loki said, finally letting go of the bureau’s knob and turning towards me with a melancholic expression. “I really am. You’d better keep that pine cone.”

I tried to say something, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t think of anything to say. The fact that he just wanted me to remember him, that he wanted to remember me, that he didn’t just want to forget this whole thing happened when he came home… I don’t know what it did, except that it felt like my chest was splitting open. Not in a painful way—in a blooming way.

“Thank you,” I managed, and reached out for a hug. This time, he reciprocated without a second thought. “I’m going to miss you too. So much.”

We stayed like that a while until he patted my back and smiled at me.

“How bored do you think Mitch is?”

“Well, there you are,” Mitch sounded a little exasperated, but otherwise was glad to see us. “Didn’t ‘magine I’d see you again. It’s nearly nine-forty.”

“Oh, hush up.” I said in a playful manner. “Don’t you know it takes women a long time to get ready?”

“Even longer if they have a kid with them,” Loki piped up. I grinned and ruffled his hair with my free hand, as the other was occupied with the bags that we had yet to bring to the car.

“I should have figured,” Mitch laughed goodnaturedly, and we exited the run-down motel lobby; the Three Stooges back together for the last leg of the trip. I told Loki to go ahead and hop into the Impala and pulled Mitch aside for a second, explaining to him the idea I’d just had while conversing with the little prince. In order for it to play out, he would need to spend as much time as possible distracting Loki as well as finish up the shopping for our trip. I think Mitch knew a well-meaning devious look when he saw one, because there was a little glint in his eyes when I started to describe the shenanigans I was about to get myself into for Loki’s sake. But weren’t those the contents of the entire trip? one might ask. Wasn’t I always getting into things for Loki? Simply put, the purpose of the entire trip was getting into a little bit of trouble and inconvenience for Prince Loki. I was proud to do it, too.

“Just one question.” Mitch said when I was finished explaining my hope-filled, probably-ludicrous plan. “Is this ‘cause you got a weird feeling? Because there’s something about that restaurant...”

He trailed off, looking at me expectantly; but I answered “actually, no.” All morning, the premonitions had not come back to me, and while it was a little bit anxiety-inducing, I was enamored once more with taking circumstances into my own hands. It felt good to be doing something for somebody else. It was meaningful. Even though the person my sapling-of-a-plan was intended for was going to be gone from my life in a matter of hours, I felt like this was the right way to end the time we’d spent together. A little celebration, a little good food—and a whole lot of driving north. “I just think… well, it’s a nice thing to do, isn’t it?

“Yep.” Mitch said, smiling brightly with (without?) his missing canine. I looked at him and he dropped it, settling for a close-lipped smile.

“Why do you do that?” I asked impertinently, knowing it was probably none of my business. Scratch that: definitely none of my business.

“Do what?” Mitch’s eyebrows knit together in vague concern and he stood a little taller. His leather jacket shone a little in the sunlight as he shifted his shoulders, confused about what I meant. I looked him up and down, squinted a little, and said,

“You smile with your teeth and then close your lips to hide them.”

“Oh.” He blushed a light pink and took a hand out of his pocket to scratch his head. “I, uh, well. There’s not much of an explanation, really, I just ain’t too fond of people staring at the space where my tooth used to be.”

“Well, don’t do that. I like your full smile.” It was almost commandeering, but I gave him no time to mind it. I was in a spectacular mood and today was going to be my most spontaneous day yet. “Anyways, since you paid the full bill for the rooms, despite me saying we ought to go Dutch…”

He just looked sheepish and scratched the back of his head again.

“...Here’s the money for the groceries, and a little extra in case you want to… I don’t know. Take him to a bookstore, or something.” I handed him a thin wad of twenties and my short, scattered grocery list. “Buy the cheapest one unless there’s a brand listed. And let him talk his lungs out, too, I’m sure he’ll have lots of interesting stories to share.” Finally, I handed over the keys to my shiny blue babe-of-a-car, and said, “Won’t be a problem if I drive the truck, will it?”

Mitch just looked at me for a second, almost unbelieving, with a hint of a smile on his face. He opened his mouth to say something, blinked, laughed, and said,

“No, ma’am. Enjoy the ride.” He dug in the pocket of his jeans for the keys to the Ford and dropped them into my waiting palm, still shaking his head in disbelief. Yes, it was odd how familiar we were with one another, but Mitch was a nice guy—and he did come in handy. Besides, it was nice to tag-team with someone again. I’d missed that part of having friends.

“Alright.” I smiled at him, glad when he returned it. “See you at noon?”

“Noon at Macy’s,” Mitch said, smiling resplendently, missing canine and all. “Got it.”

With that, we parted ways and walked to our respective—well, switched—vehicles. I was already looking forward to driving the truck again. God, that leather seat was just plush heaven.

After snuggling in and clicking the seat belt into place, I chanced a look behind me at the Impala, wondering again if it really was such a bright idea to leave my kid with someone I had only known for half as long as Loki. But as it had been all morning, there was no ugly premonition. I trusted Mitch almost more than I trusted myself. He hadn’t done anything thus far to make me think less of him, even in the simplest of ways. The man rang of truth and sincerity. I considered this as I picked out one of his Sheryl Crow CDs to listen to for the short drive back over to Macy’s place.

He can’t exactly run far with that knee of his, either, I thought, which definitively settled the maternal restlessness in my stomach. My boys would be fine.  
Your boys, my brain scoffed.

I was in too good a mood to listen. My boys, indeed.

While Mitch took Loki for a spin in the Impala, I returned to the diner to hopefully enact our celebration plan. A teenage girl was out in front, staring at the wall of the restaurant with her hands on her hips like she was in some kind of deep thought. I walked past her, smiling to be polite as I opened the glass door to the diner. The look she gave me was one that you might see on the face of an orderly who isn’t too used to the psychos’ antics in Ward B, which almost made me stop and ask her what was wrong. But I had a schedule to adhere to, and besides, I was in a spectacular mood—I could afford a little crazy look here and there. Maybe I’d just forgotten to brush my hair, or something. I strode through the aisles of sunlit tables to the counter where Macy was standing, organizing glasses behind the bar.

“Hi, Macy,” I said, quickly reintroducing myself so that she wouldn’t be too bewildered. She looked up sharply at the sound of my voice, but relaxed when she recognized who she was talking to. Her bunny-grey hair had several flyaways, like she’d been working through the night, and her pallid expression was only warmed slightly by the sunlight of the morning. “You doing okay?” I asked, partly out of courtesy, but also because it looked like she’d been up for the last 72 hours taking orders and sorting dishware.

“Oh, yes.” She said, smiling lightly and setting down a thick-bottomed scotch glass that was in her hand. “Just a bit of irritable insomnia. Come in for breakfast, did you? I don’t suppose you realize we don’t open until eleven?”

I blushed in embarrassment. “Oh—sorry. I actually came to ask a favor, but I can leave if you’re not open yet, eleven’ll give me enough time-”

Well, now I had her attention. The curiosity was enough to bring the flair back to her person, like a wilted flower taking its water and minerals. “Enough time? What’s the favor?”

“Well, I don’t want to trouble you,” I began, but she frowned and waved her crinkled hand in my direction. I vaguely wondered what brand could make a perfume that smelled subtly of both lavender and hot fudge at the same time.

“Nothing’s trouble for you, dear. If anything, I expect you’ll want to bring your son back so he can eat us out of the restaurant. How does he do that? Is it a medical condition?”

“Kind of,” I blurted, not knowing exactly how to explain it without giving away any of Loki’s other “conditions”. “I came to ask, though, if you want to help me with a surprise for him. Loki. It’s his birthday today, and…”

I filled her in on the details and watched with an ever-increasing good mood as the weariness of her apparent insomnia continued to melt away. She looked like an angel in the light, hair all fluffy and glowing.

“Right.” She clapped her hands together, and again I was awash in the indescribably faint scent of lavender and chocolate. “Let’s do it.”

She invited me back into the kitchen, and we began.

“Right.” Mitch put the key in the ignition of the Impala, marveling at how small it was. Or maybe it was just his hands that were too big. Who knew. In any case, the old car started up after a little clicking, a persistent whine, and a loud grumble. “You’ve gone shopping before.” The car snickered to itself and Mitch gently tugged the gear shift into reverse.

“Once or twice,” replied Loki, who was watching the rust-brown pickup truck pull out of the parking lot. The way Mitch and (Y/N) had been talking to one another was curious. If he didn’t know any better, he might have called it ‘conspiratory’. He wondered what the subject material could possibly be, but he had a pretty reliable suspicion that it was either about him, or about them. Perhaps about them. He still thought it amusing that there were very few occasions on which (Y/N) could actually look Mitch in the eye.

Mitch hummed and was delighted to find that the car handled as easily as it did on the hilly road into Split Lake. Though the engine sounded a little aggravated, the old thing gave up on complaining and allowed him to smoothly guide them out of the motel’s parking lot. He braked in the narrow entrance, waiting for a squirrel to scurry across the road. “So you know what your Ma means when she says “buy cheap unless there’s a brand”?”

“She means buy the brand if it’s written on the shopping list. She’s really particular about things like that.” Loki settled back into his seat and, complying with the 1967 Chevrolet Impala Owner’s Manual, clipped the seatbelt across his shoulders and lap for maximum safety. “In all honesty, you could just buy the cheapest one and she’d be happy with that. I feel as though sometimes I’m living with a peasant, but this machine would say otherwise.” He reached forward and patted the dashboard lovingly as the car rolled forward.

Mitch laughed and nodded, wheat-colored bangs just barely catching on his eyelashes. He flicked them out of the way and focused on keeping an eye out for a grocery store, or at the very least, a mini-mart next to a gas station. They were on one of the many well-worn main roads, one that was actually paved instead of covered in sheets of gravel. “(Y/N)’s got a right eye for old cars.”

Loki looked at him strangely. “Old? I thought for sure all these contraptions must be new.”

The southern gentleman wondered aloud at Loki’s Shakespearean lilt, and explained that the number 1967 referred specifically to the year the car was made. It was as if Loki had just been provided with a missing puzzle piece. He put his index finger to his lips and tapped rhythmically, thinking to himself in volumes.

The car whined and Mitch whispered, “Oh, stop that.” Coincidentally, this was exactly when the whine went away, and he spotted a store up ahead that looked as if it might contain the general items they needed for the last day of their trip.

“Time,” Loki said quietly, drawing Mitch’s attention. “How much time has passed here?”

“Depends, kiddo. What year was it where you came from?” Mitch asked, not quite sure what to expect, except for perhaps another derogatory sound from the car’s engine. None came, thankfully.

“Well,” Loki said, pausing to scratch his head and think logically once more. “I remember it being 1452.”

It was lucky that Mitch didn’t often have physical reactions to things, because otherwise he might have made the Impala jump the curb going into the grocery’s parking lot and gunned it into the side door of another car. Instead, Mitch kept his feet level on the pedals and said,

“It was what year?”

“1452.” Loki repeated, green eyes shimmering with recalled memory. “What year is it here? I can’t believe I forgot to ask. I guess I must have assumed somewhere along the line that you were just an advanced civilization, what with the cameras and the computers… Really, now, those would be helpful when Frigga is teaching me calculations. But you all on Midgard have this at your disposal…”

“It’s 2015 here.” Mitch cut into Loki’s thoughts with a shocking discovery—although it was less of a discovery and more of just a surprising confirmation about the small Norse prince’s previous conceptions of reality.

“I thought it might be later,” Loki laughed as his mom’s friend parked the car and turned to look at him as if he were an alien. It was an expression he’d gotten used to, even back in Asgard. “This is too advanced a society for a people so close in relation to us. The difference being the godly part, that is.” The laughter died down into a contented smile, and Loki flashed his bright green eyes at Mitch, disconcerting the already-confused man even more. Right… gods. Norse gods, in particular. One could almost forget that crazy story with a kid as imaginative as him. “Shall we go shopping, then?”

The southern gentleman nodded slowly, and cut the car’s ignition once they were safely tucked into a parking space.

As the two got out of the car and slammed their doors one after the other, Mitch contemplated quietly how he wished he hadn’t taken acid with his buddies in college, because it sure seemed like he was paying for it now with some sort of vivid multi-day fever dream. They approached the storefront side-by-side, one casually chatting about the differences between Asgard and Midgard, and the other praying for a sign from God that they weren’t eligible for the nearest psychiatric hospital.

“Here, you take this.” Mitch said, handing over the shopping list as they walked into the store. Loki accepted the folded paper enthusiastically. “I’ll take the cart and keep a sharp eye out while you read off what we need.”

“Okay!” The little prince chimed, the curls on his head matching his bouncing step. For how small the store seemed on the outside, it was curiously busy within, and Mitch wasn’t surprised to find that the last few carts in the rack were of the squeaky-wheeled garishly bright blue variety. He sighed and selected the most benign-looking one, which stalled a little on the carpet of the entryway, until they were able to get it through the doors and onto the store floor.

They began their walk through the store, pleasantly refreshed by the smell of delectable produce and the slight tang of floor-cleaning chemicals. The troublesome fourth wheel of the cart occasionally caught on the smooth linoleum, and Mitch had to wrestle for full control of the cart more than once. Loki started to list things off eagerly, bounding along the aisles with a certain unmatched youth.

“Juice boxes, cereal, granola bars, cheese, wheat bread—oh good!—tomatoes, yes! Baked beans, whatever those are… chips, fruit snacks, fudge striped cookies…”

Mitch busied himself with looking around the store for anything that matched the list. While (Y/N) was no doubt a somewhat aligned individual, it was a wonder she was able to find anything in a place like this; her list was as organized as the end result of a game of 52-card Pickup. He had to circle the outer aisles three times before he realized that popcorn might be next to the trail mix and not the chip section like he’d thought.

Loki babbled all throughout the grocery trip. Most of the words that came out of his mouth pertained to the actual foods on the list, but a good chunk of it was questions relating to the state of the world now.

“So when did World War Two happen?” The little raven-haired prince wondered aloud, hopping up on the sidebar of the cart as Mitch aimed it for the canned-foods aisle.

“That was around 1939 to 1947, if I’ve got the dates right.”

“And you already had cameras and cars then, correct?”

“Yup,” Mitch replied, wondering if (Y/N) would barter over 50 cents on a can of mandarin oranges. He decided to be generous and put the cheaper can in the basket of the cart.

“Oh, this is interesting!” Loki continued ecstatically, bouncing lightly on his tiptoes and chattering aloud. He seemed to have lost all filters for speech, every thought that crossed his mind made its way past his lips. Mitch couldn’t blame him. He had, essentially, come out of nowhere and found an entirely new world to learn about. Whether that was the result of actually coming from a place called Asgard or being kept in the woods in some weird little Amish community for eight years, Mitch wasn’t sure. “There’s so much to learn! Where do you keep your history? Is it all in one text? Could one purchase and read such a thing? And how can you be so far ahead in time? Heimdall has some explaining to do...”

“Right after you do all your explaining ‘n’ tell your parents exactly how you got down here in the first place.” Mitch interjected, squinting at a bunch of bananas and determining that they were just ripe enough to buy. “How did’ja manage to fall through the bi-frost, anyway? I don’t think you ever quite covered that in all the things you told me about how you got here.”

Loki blushed in embarrassment and pursed his lips. “Well, I was playing hide and seek with Heimdall, as one does. Thor was off playing some hero game with Sif and his other friends, so I really had nothing much to do.” He looked on as Mitch seemed to struggle with which trail mix brand to pick, and pointed to the one that looked as if it might match other things in (Y/N)’s pantry. Into the cart it went with a resounding clatter. “Other than laze around the castle all day, I mean. Father was busy with his hearings, and Mother was tending to her garden, which is the one time I’m definitely not supposed to bother her. So I decided to play hide and seek with Heimdall.”

“And Heimdall is who?” Mitch glanced at Loki, who sighed heavily, and described the gatekeeper of the Bifrost shortly as a giant man with “the golden eyes of a serpent” and a “sword as tall as me! Really, I’ve measured!”. Mitch nodded along as if he understood perfectly well that, logically, there must be a giant man guarding the gate in the sky.

“And sometime during the game I got it into my head to cross through,” Loki went on, now pushing the cart as they made their way to the baked goods section. “So, while he was looking for me, I grabbed the sword and used it kind of like a key to open the gate, and then—well, I fell. Literally.” He looked down at his knees as if remembering a scrape that had marred his skin. “I went hurtling into some sort of grassy knoll, and I was so excited to be somewhere else that I didn’t think of how I was going to get back immediately. It was a new kingdom; possibly for my own taking.”

Mitch nodded along, laughing internally at the thought of an eight-year-old wanting to rule the world. He remembered when he was eight—he had the same ambition, only instead of tax legislation, he was fixing to impose a law that would make ice cream for breakfast mandatory.

Those were the good old days, Mitch thought to himself, and then focused back in on Loki’s story.

“And then I met (Y/N), and, well. Here we are.” He finished, staring intently at a package on the shelf marked “Fudge Stripe Cookies”. “Hey, are these on the list?”

“They can be,” Mitch said, knowing that both he and Loki shared a sweet tooth for chocolatey desserts.

Loki let out a little whoop of joy and snatched a package from the shelf to put in the cart. They’d gotten just about everything on the list, though (Y/N) was unscrupulously disorganized for a woman of her caliber. Mitch thought about this and wondered aloud,

“Is she a good mom?”

“Who, (Y/N)?”

“Yeah.” He paused, scratching his head for a second to think. “I mean, compared to your real mother.”

Loki pondered this for a second. “My mother is my mother, and she’s irreplaceable in my heart and mind.”

Mitch nodded almost imperceptibly, wheeling the cart toward the crowded checkout lanes.

The little raven-haired boy continued. “But the answer is… yes. (Y/N) and I get along just fine. We’re both quite stubborn, but like she always seems to say, we’re doing our best.” He shrugged. “I like her. She’ll never be my mother, but…”

Mitch waited patiently, counting up the items in their cart to make sure they hadn’t missed one.

“...I think she’s a good mom.” Loki’s voice was almost unnaturally small and sweet. Mitch looked over at him, but the raven-haired boy wouldn’t meet his eyes no matter what—he resolved to stare at the rack of chewing gum and the tabloid magazines below.

There was a moment of quiet where the sounds of the store overtook their conversation; squeaky wheels in aisles over, softened customer chatter, and doors thumping shut in the refrigerated section. A quaint thought dawned on Loki, and he began to grin slyly. Mitch hardly noticed, as he was assembling their groceries on the conveyor belt of the lineup they’d just stepped into.

“And you like her too, don’t you!” The little prince prodded, helpfully stacking cans by threes on the belt in order to maintain a surreptitious air.

“Yeah, she’s an alright girl. Got a nice car and a weird attitude. But she’s downright friendly.” Mitch smiled to himself, placing the bread bags on the conveyor.

“Yes, but you like her.” Loki continued cheekily. “Like a flower likes water. And how grain likes the sunlight.”

Mitch gave him a funny look, adding the produce to the stack of items on the belt. “Any more nature metaphors you’d care to share?”

“Like a rabbit likes clover,” Loki said exasperatedly. “Like—like me and Sif!”

It was Mitch’s turn to blush with embarrassment. He put the final package from the cart on the conveyor belt and turned to Loki, hands on his hips like an authoritative mother. Loki laughed out loud.

“Now, what makes you say that?”

“I just know,” Loki said boldly, with a smile to match no other, as if he’d just caught his brother with a hand in the cookie jar.

“Whatever you say,” The southern gentleman muttered, mostly to himself, and readied a few twenty dollar bills for the transaction.

“What exactly is a Belgian waffle cake supposed to look like?” The phrase was thrown into the little kitchen window as Macy had already begun to happily twirl around the restaurant, taking early brunch and lunchtime orders. It truly was going to be a beautiful day—apparently the weather up here was rarely this nice. Sunlight streamed in through the big picture windows in the front as guests chittered and chattered and clinked their forks and shouted goodnaturedly for more coffee here, a napkin there. The atmosphere was energetic and I wondered what the sermon had been like at mass this morning. As a token of thanks to Macy and the crew for helping me out with my conniving celebratory plans, I was behind the counter, doing some extra work. Apparently their dish boy was out sick that week, and I “had the perfect little hands” for “taking care of my blue china”. Nothing Macy had in that kitchen even remotely resembled china, but I wasn’t about to question the owner of such a picturesque business—so I stood and scrubbed the plates until they positively shone from the pressure. My hands were beginning to turn red from the heat of the water, but I didn’t mind.

“Honestly, I have no clue. I’m picturing it as a stack of three or four really thick waffles with maple syrup frosting and raspberries on top, but anything you have in mind would be equally good, I’m sure.”

“Well, can you make the waffles?” Macy shouted over the noise of the sizzling bacon, this time poking her head through the little peeping window. The short-order cook, Kizzy, was frying up a storm today. She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye and raised an eyebrow in minute amusement as Macy awaited an answer.

“I sure can,” I shouted back. Could I? Probably. I’d made that recipe enough times to have memorized it.

“Great,” came the reply. “I’ll get Chico on the maple buttercream.”

“Who’s doing dishes, then?” I yelled, hoping Macy hadn’t run off to one of the tables yet.

Just then, Macy strode into the kitchen with a team of what could only be described as hapless church youths, all looking as if they’d perhaps just gotten out of bed; clumsily dressed with aprons—more like smocks—tied around their waists. A few were squabbling amongst themselves, one was yawning and another was rubbing her eyes. The girl next to the eye-rubber elbowed her friend and she quickly slapped her hands down to her sides, wiping them on her apron-smock.

“We’ve got company,” She practically sang, and I cheered, accidentally flicking dishwater onto the countertop.

Here’s to hoping I could recall that waffle recipe.

“You like her, you like her, you like her,” Loki chanted jubilantly as Mitch stowed the groceries in the back of the Impala. “You like her, you like her, you liiiike her!”

“If I’ve said it once today, I’ve said it a million times,” Mitch said wearily. “She’s a good friend. A good friend.”

Loki just shook his head and smiled in that cheeky way of his again. “You like her more than that, Mitch, I know you do!”

Time for a distraction, the southern gentleman thought to himself. It was almost as if he could feel his patience wearing thin by the minute. What had (Y/N) said? Something about a bookstore. Yes. Bookstore. Mitch closed the trunk hatch and leaned back on the car, imagining the blissful silence that a bookstore would bring. It was the closest thing they had to a library, and all the stories would keep Loki adequately entrenched in his own thoughts. Plus, books were usually pretty good presents; even without taking into consideration the Shakespearean tendencies of this child in particular.

“Did you happen to see a bookstore on the way here, Loki?” He asked, sighing aloud with relief when the kid’s constant berating about his intrinsic love life finally stopped.

“You mean like the one on Oliver Avenue?” Loki asked.

“Perfect. Let’s go.”

They walked around to their respective sides of the car and once again slammed the doors just seconds away from at the same time. Mitch’s bliss from not being chanted at was short lived, however, as Loki soon resumed his version of slow torture.

“You like her.” His tone was wheedling now, as if expecting something—perhaps the disintegration of the man’s resolve. “You think she’s an independent lady. A real go-getter. She’d make a good wife.”

“Hush up,” Mitch said, none too kindly, but still gentle enough not to scare him. He put the key in the ignition and the Impala started up with a cough. “What I think of (Y/N) and what she thinks of me isn’t really any of your business, is it? How would you feel if I was teasing you about Sif for twenty minutes straight?”

Loki stayed silent, hopefully contemplating the questions posed; although Mitch seriously doubted it. The silence was nice, though. He sighed and raked a hand through his wheat-gold hair, making a conscious effort to un-knit his eyebrows and quit blushing so much. God, who knew kids could be so embarrassing. Sixty guided them smoothly through the parking lot and brought them to the intersection just before Oliver Avenue. Still, Loki was quiet.

But he began to smile.

Not threateningly, of course. But slyly. Coyly. Mitch was able to ignore it for about five minutes, but once they were parked on the street before the shabby jade-green porch of the bookstore, he had to ask. That stupid grin was eating away at him. It was like it had an aura of its own.

“What?”

“You didn’t deny anything,” Loki answered, still smiling widely.

Mitch just leaned forward and rested his forehead on the steering wheel with yet another heaving sigh.

I checked the clock. Eleven forty-five—they were coming soon, and I’d just barely been able to scrape together enough waffle batter to make four huge and fluffy Belgian waffles in the industrial-sized iron Macy had hanging out by the knife block. Kizzy had helped me figure out the settings before returning to her post, frying eggs and ham for Noah and Chicks on A Raft, which appeared to be the most popular dish of the day.

“He wants the tomato on the side?” one of the youths, a girl in a paint-splattered apron, asked confusedly.

“Yeah. Biggest one you can find, about yea big.” I gestured with both hands and her eyes bugged out of her head.

“Well, I’ll see…”

“Don’t worry about it. As long as it’s ripe, red, and splatters juice everywhere, he’ll love it.”

The girl trundled off to the fridge in search of a suitable tomato. I was preparing the ingredients for Macy’s “At-Home Yellow-Bellied Comfort”, which was to say, mac-and-cheese. Two boys from the church youth group Macy had brought in were helping to make the bean salsa. One was bent over the scribbled Post-It note I’d given them with the bare minimum of a recipe on it, the other was gleefully stirring beans and cilantro. I turned back to the blue Dutch oven with a smile and salted the boiling water before continuing to shred the cheese off to the side. While I was great at general cookery and handling knives, grating things needed a little more precision—I’d very nearly lost a thumb to a cheese grater once. Gingerly, I scraped the block of smoked cheddar against the ribbed sharp metal.

Everything was coming together nicely. Macy gently placed the Belgian stack in the oven so that it could be kept warm while orders came hopping in all over, making the kitchen the busiest one I’d ever been in. People whom I hadn’t even realized were on shift whizzed by at every moment, calling orders to each other, warning of who was carrying a knife, who had a large dish, who had a hot soup—to and fro the waiters and cooks and chefs swayed, all in their place at the right time. It was, in a word, rhythm. And it was so smooth that I’d even gotten used to calling things back to them, talking over the groan of heating elements and the friskfriskfrisk of whoever was beating eggs this time around. I’d helped Kizzy with a few things on her list—as it would turn out, I’m a natural at peeling and chopping potatoes efficiently. Even the short order cook herself was pleasantly surprised to find that I’d been able to completely prepare five potatoes for frying in a matter of ten minutes, without any blood or bandaids involved.

“You’re good,” She said, the first (and only) two words she would ever direct at me.

“Thanks,” I responded, and we left it at that, more orders coming in almost every few minutes. The diner was absolutely popping with people today, all of whom were let in on a certain plan, and a certain instruction to just sing along when they “heard it”. The seams of the building were practically bursting with excitement. I had the distinct feeling that nothing this communal had happened in Split Lake for a while, though as small as the town was, I couldn’t quite bring myself to believe that.

Someone’s timer chimed, and out of pure reflex, I glanced at the clock. Eleven fifty. I turned toward the counter space behind me where Chico was hunched over a bowl, carefully scooping and examining the maple frosting to make sure it was the right consistency. He caught me looking and gave me a smile and a thumbs up, which, quite honestly, I’d never expected to get from someone with a Megan Fox tattoo on their bicep and the general aura of “if you even look at me funny, my foot will be so far up your…”

But, here we were, in a bustling kitchen, cooperating as nicely as could be. I took the pseudo-cake out of the oven and turned the heat off while Chico frosted it. A girl from the church outfit rushed over with a bowl of glistening raspberries, nearly tripping on her oversized apron ties, and I thanked her profusely as I arranged the fruit atop the strange-looking cake. At eleven fifty-four, it went back into the cooling oven to be kept warm, and Macy rushed me out to the dining area to wait for Mitch and the birthday boy to arrive.

It was perfect.

It was… perfect.

At eleven fifty-four, Mitch and Loki were still in the bookstore, the latter of the two trying to decide on which book he would gift himself for his birthday—an endeavor which had taken the better part of two hours, and was beginning to work on Mitch’s nerves. It was something that bothered him when he had a schedule to stick to—not that he usually did; but when others showed signs of deviating from the appropriate events and times, he did get a little bit antsy. As antsy as an easygoing person can be, at least.

“C’mon, kiddo, we’re going to be late,” Mitch chided with yet another glance at his wrist. It was a mystery why he did this, as it was apparent to both him and Loki that there was no watch present on his sun-bronzed arm. He fingered the paper bills in his pocket and watched as Loki squinted at him, performing some judgment of whether to be more or less of an inconvenience. Mitch waited with baited breath for the decision.

“Okay, fine. This one.” Though he was surrounded by heaps of leafed-through novels, encyclopedias, and children’s books, Loki held up a small copy of Hansel and Gretel. The cover was bedraggled, and it looked to be an old edition, possibly belonging in an antique shop like Rick’s—which is what Loki supposed drew him to it. That, he thought to himself, and the fact that this was the story (Y/N) had told him… that night. He fingered the pages one last time and changed his mind, setting the storybook back down, and exchanging it for a well-worn history textbook that had writing in the margins. “Actually, I think this one.”

“Really?” Mitch asked suspiciously, hoping this wasn’t an extension of the act he’d been putting on for the latter half of the morning, but Loki nodded earnestly and put the battered copy of Hansel and Gretel back on the shelf. He’d just have to ask (Y/N) to tell him another fairytale sometime. And hope that it wouldn’t be accompanied with the devious creatures of the night.

The cashier, who’d been watching them with some level of entertainment for the past two hours, laughed with relief. “I was starting to think you’d never pick.”

Loki stuck out his tongue at them and proceeded to neatly place books back on shelves where they belonged. Mitch helped him with a few on the higher shelves, secretly hoping (Y/N) wouldn’t mind if they were a bit late—at this rate, it was getting chancy. The schedule could still be somewhat salvaged if they didn’t show up right away, but he knew she wanted to pull it off quickly and at the right time, so that the full effect of the surprise could be incurred. Mitch quietly shook his head as he picked up a stack of almanacs and sat them back on the creaking metal book trolley from whence they came. Eventually all the shelves in the surrounding area were packed tight with books young and old once again, and Mitch offered the cashier a substantial tip as well as the textbook’s fee for the whole ordeal. Happily, they accepted, and even went so far as to put a little bow on the beaten cover of the 500-page giant.

“Happy birthday,” they said, and Loki hugged the volume to his chest, smiling luminously.

“Thank you! How did you-?”

“We’re going to be late,” Mitch reminded him, and off they went, back onto the crooked old porch, bounding to the Impala.

Loki sat in the passenger side as usual, staring curiously at the book’s cover. On it were a little boy and a little girl, dressed curiously like some Asgardian folk, although they looked a bit more… grimy. More like peasants. Judging by the content of the book, that would mean that some time ago, all Midgardians dressed in such a manner. He wondered if there had ever been some Asgardian who fell to Midgard and decided to create such a little society. Maybe, indeed. He slowly pulled the bright yellow ribbon off of the book, lavishing in the feeling of pride and gratitude and gift-reaping that the day of his birth offered him. A thought entered his mind with a pinch of curiosity.

“You don’t live very long, do you?” Loki asked the man in the driver’s seat.

Mitch looked at him with bewilderment in his brown eyes. “What makes you say that?”

“Peasants usually don’t,” Loki said, shrugging and opening up the front cover to read a little. The margin-writer had a variety of pens to inundate the pages with, but the most common was the blue ink. He looked forward to deciphering their mysterious notations.

A beat passed. Several beats, actually. Mitch had no idea what to say to that and instead focused on guiding the car around a sharp curb, which went less well than one might have liked. The wheels just barely jounced off of the side of the concrete, and he winced a little, inhaling sharply through his teeth.

“I won’t tell,” Loki said quickly.

“Thanks.” Mitch smiled with regret. “But she’ll know just from the look on my face.”

Loki knew it was true, sighed happily, hugged his textbook and waited for Mitch to park.

It was 12:01 when they walked through the door, and I was sitting at the very same table we had dined at last night, so it wasn’t too hard to find me. The sunlight glittered and absolutely lit up the patrons in the restaurant. Smiles shone, forks glistened, eyes sparkled, and people just seemed like their most wholesome selves. This, of course, included the two people advancing toward me now. Loki waved excitedly and ran towards me with a giant textbook in arms—the thing was almost as big as him!—chattering about how cool the history of our world was and… something about how I hadn’t been alive yet in his world, and… something else about a frosty bridge that I wasn’t too sure I was hearing right. He let the book fall onto the table with a thump and opened his arms for a hug, which I gladly accepted. He kept talking into my shoulder and eventually peeled away to show me the entirety of the textbook, green eyes glimmering like seaglass.

“And there’s blue ink, too, some red here and there. I think the blue represents general events and the red is a marker for violence and war, but I haven’t gotten it all figured out yet. I still need to catch up on… everything.” Every thought poured out of him enthusiastically like a little overfilled juice pitcher. I patted him on the shoulder.

“You’ve got a lot to cover, bud.”

“Yes,” he sighed dramatically, but stroked the book as if it were some kind of exotic pet. “That’s why I like it so much.”

I laughed. “Okay, weirdo.”

“I’m not weird,” he said, poking his tongue out at me momentarily. “I just like to learn, is all. And learn I shall!”

“Okay, Shakespeare,” I corrected myself, amused. “Who’s hungry?”

“Me!” He raised both hands, looked at them, and said, “Be right back!”

As he dashed off to the restroom to reap the foam-style container of its cherry-blossom scented soap, Mitch sat down at the table with a little ‘huff’ and a look of vague exhaustion.

“What did you do to my car?” I joked. He automatically ducked his head and scratched the back of his neck, assuming the most sheepish look I’d ever seen on him. Quickly, I grew serious. “Mitch. What did you do to my car?”

“Just nicked it off a curb coming into the restaurant lot,” He said. “It was, uh… weird. I’m no great driver, but…” He shrugged. “Never mind. Anyways, I checked, and although there was a mite bit of gravel stuck in your treads, there wasn’t any scratch or nothin’ that I could see.”

“Alright, alright. Good. Then… how’d it go?” I asked, stifling a giggle.

“Y’know,” he started, stopped, and took a moment to think about it. He shook his head, smiling softly. “He’s a great kid. Just a great kid. Takes a while to decide on a book, but a great kid.”

“And the grocery store?” I asked.

“Got everything you asked for,” he replied, and gave a little chuckle. “And some things you didn’t. Just fudge cookies, though, not a big deal. A li’l birthday treat. Boy, can he talk fast.”

“Mmm, don’t I know it,” I said, laughing out loud this time as Mitch rested his arms flat on the table and laid his head down with exhaustion. He continued to talk:

“He’s got some interesting stories. Told me about the bridge he fell from, Asgard, the giant man in the sky who guards the realms, all that. Very interesting stories. Says he’s from the year 1452, and that’s why we’re so advanced; they just haven’t aged their society yet. And by God,” He drew himself back up to full height to look at me. “Every time he saw something in one of those books, he pointed it out like it was magical. It’s weird to see a kid do that. Almost like if you took ‘n Amish kid to the mall or something. He was looking at cars, telephones, camcorders, VCRs, tapes; he wanted me to tell him how electricity worked and if we somehow got a flame inside of a glass bulb…” Mitch’s brown eyes were full of tired energy and confusion, but they were also filled with an adoring wonder, like he really was the one who was introducing a little Amish boy to the outside world. “Combustion chambers, air conditioning, television: you name it, he asked about it. And I’m a handyman, you know that,” He paused. My shoulders shook with silent laughter. “But half the time I just had to say I didn’t know!”

“I wouldn’t worry about it.” I tried to reassure him. “Like he said, he just wants to learn. I think he’s so excited about it because it’s... real for him today.”

Loki walked out of the restroom then and began sauntering back toward us. I looked at Mitch. “Because he’s going back home. I think it’s just a fascination he has—he wants to remember this place.”

“Makes sense,” said Mitch, and just then Loki came bounding back up to the table.

“What’s for lunch?” Loki asked excitedly, sliding into the booth beside me and patting his stomach in the way that someone who expects food sooner rather than later does.

“Macy’ll be out with it in a few minutes.” I said. “I took the liberty of ordering, since I got here first.”

Loki squinted at me suspiciously. “Hey, where were you all morning? Why didn’t you come shopping with us?”

One may assume that I would panic in such a situation, because I did not have the foresight to prepare for this kind of question, despite knowing how smart Loki was. And in this case, one would be absolutely right. But I did my best to answer. “Just talking a few things over with Anah. I wanted to see if there was anything else we might need to go further north.”

“Like what?” Loki asked.

“Oh, you know. Survival kits and whatnot.” I sniffed mildly, hoping I was doing a good job of white-lying through my teeth. “Heavy coats, lighters, dry food, pots and pans, mugs. But we have all that, so I think we’re good.”

The little raven-haired prince seemed to accept this as a halfway decent answer and once more picked up the textbook to begin reading from the first few pages. Mitch and I exchanged a look and a knowing sheepish smile.

Just then, Macy and her crew of church youth waiters and waitresses flew out of the kitchen doors like songbirds out of a bush. Each was holding two dishes, inclusive of the macaroni and cheese I’d worked on and the black bean salsa that hopefully those boys hadn’t added too much cilantro to. One of the girls I’d talked to earlier was holding a plate with the largest slices of tomato I’d seen yet—and the look on Loki’s face was priceless. But the real surprise came when Macy advanced from the kitchen with the maple-buttercreamed waffle cake in hand. The boys and girls from the church outfit sort of rushed the table; and bumped into each other in their eagerness to set the dishes down, apologizing quietly here and there and sometimes accidentally elbowing each other in the sides. Loki turned to me with his mouth agape and said in a loud voice,

“You liar!”

“Guilty as charged.” I burst out laughing. “Happy birthday, kiddo.”

He was too shocked to thank me. Macy marched forward at last with the cake, which I noticed had 8 lovely red candles atop it. She pulled an old purple Bic lighter from the largest pocket of her apron and clicked it a few times, cursed under her breath, smacked it against the table, clicked it again, and lit the candles without a problem from there. Loki looked at me as if this might be some sort of cult ritual where he was about to become the human sacrifice, so I tried to reassure him by patting him on the back.

“Happy birthday to you,” Macy began, and the church youths joined in readily. As instructed, the whole restaurant followed suit, and soon even Mitch and I joined the flock of off-tune voices all singing with the happiest day in mind.

I don’t think the whole scene made it all the way to Loki’s brain. He just stared at the flickering flames on the candles, watching the red hot wax drip down to the maple frosting as we sang to him. When the song was finished (as well as the applause, since that seems to be something a lot of people do after singing Happy Birthday), he looked at me again for guidance.

“What do I do?” He whispered.

Now I was actually a little bit shocked myself. “You… make a wish? And blow out the candles? Don’t you do that in Asgard?”

He shook his head. “Midgardians are the weird ones.”

I laughed, but quickly quieted down once he closed his eyes and considered what must have been an awfully complex wishlist. The restaurant remained silent except for a few titterings of conversation here and there, impatient people who wanted to return to their meals; which I fully understood. But after a minute, Loki stood, took a deeper breath than humanly possible, and in one sharp gust blew out all the candles.

The restaurant burst into applause once more, and Macy and the kitchen crew all wished him a happy birthday before stepping into the back room to fill more orders and keep the good things coming. I turned back to our table where Loki was profusely apologizing of his own will to Mitch, who had red wax splatters all over his face.

“‘S no trouble,” He said, trying to comb the backsplash out of his wheat-gold hair before it could dry. I handed him a napkin after being thoroughly amazed that Loki apologized of his own volition without even laughing first. Man, he really was getting older. Older than me, anyway, because I burst into laughter the second I saw the red splotches decorating Mitch’s sweet-yet-confused expression.

“Will you be okay?” Loki asked, and Mitch nodded and picked up the spoon to his macaroni and cheese, which was the signal to us that lunch was to commence. Delightfully, we dug into the food. And it would be ridiculously cliche to say it was the best meal ever—but you know what, sometimes life is cliche. It was the best meal ever.

Loki elbowed me in the side. “It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal, you know.”

I played stupid for a moment. “What wasn’t?”

“My birthday.” He tried to make it sound menacing, but that was pretty hard to do through a mouthful of juicy tomato and bean salsa. “That was almost embarrassing. You’re just lucky…”

“Lucky?” I thought aloud, still spooning mac ‘n’ cheese into my mouth. “Lucky I have a Loki, you mean. You’re a kid worth celebrating.”

“You’re lucky I like attention, sometimes,” he continued pointedly. “And you’re lucky to have me, yes.” He turned to me and, with a seriousness that no eight-year-old on planet Earth could possibly match, said, “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” I said. “Don’t think you don’t deserve it, either.”

Loki just smiled. “Can we have some cake?”

With that, we commenced with the consumption of the Belgian waffle tower in front of us. Mitch was surprised to see that not only did it look like the actual fluffy waffle, it was the actual fluffy waffle. He gave me a smile with a little twinkle in his eye as he finished his second-to-last bite.

“Awfully creative chef,” he drawled, scraping up the maple frosting that had draped itself across the rim of his plate.

“Baker. But thank you.” I returned with an equally courageous smile. Loki elbowed me in the side again, and whether it was on accident or not, I’ll never know—because he then asked if he could perform a few magic tricks.

“You know, for the guests!” He chimed excitedly, having finished the cake on his plate with that never-ending voracious hunger of his. “Please? Just some small ones. Parlor tricks, if you will.”

“Knock yourself out,” I said, and then panicked a little bit. “Which means just go ahead.”

He laughed and nodded. “I know.”

I watched him for a while, zipping around the restaurant like a little thrill-seeking missile. Several of the patrons were delighted to see him and were more interested in conversation than what he’d shown up at their table for—but were even more delighted when he elected to show them how he could make certain things appear and disappear from thin air. At one table, he produced a little bronze coin from his pocket, and had a little girl hide it under her napkin. He waved his hand over the piece of navy blue cloth and then pinched the middle, lifting it straight up: no coin in sight. The girl clapped her hands excitedly, and with a snap of the finger (and a little green spark), the coin dropped into her lap. Her eyes were blown wide with astonishment, and she begged to see more magic. Her parents were amused, though I could see a familiar hesitation in the mother’s eyes—‘how did he do that?’

Who knows, I thought to her as if she could receive my message telepathically.

I turned back to the table, which was in delicious ruins with the remainders of our lunch. The Belgian waffle cake seemed to deflate a little once it was cut, and I wondered how much of it would fit in a take-out box if we sliced it the right way.

“He’s sure something, alright,” Mitch said, twirling his fork languidly on the rim of his plate, watching as Loki shocked an elderly woman by turning her cane different colors. “A good something, of course.”

“Yup.” I smiled, and gazed out the window at our two parked cars. A thought occurred to me. “How long are you planning to travel with us, Mitch?”

He tilted his head in that endearing way, but I was still looking over the cars in the parking lot, trying to remember which ones I’d seen before. “As long as you need me to. Maybe then some. Have you noticed the feeling is…?”

“Gone?” I finished the sentence, finally turning my gaze onto him. “It’s weird, isn’t it? It’s like we’ve finally… finished something. Except we haven’t. Not really.”

He shuffled his fingers through his hair and sighed exasperatedly. “(Y/N), I wish I knew what in Sam Hill is going on. I really do.”

I nudged his leg under the table in a friendly manner. “Course you know, dork, you’re at a birthday party!”

Mitch smiled for a second, following Loki’s haphazard trail through the restaurant as he dazzled the customers with little ‘parlor tricks’. He was getting better and better with each trick—he even created a Chicago Delight out of thin air for an unsuspecting patron sitting at the bar side of the restaurant. “Yeah, I know that much. But the rest just feels like a dream. Doesn’t it? Tell me I’m not the only one who feels like I’m dreaming.”

“You’re not. But I’ve accepted that feeling. It’s a way of life.” I was still in a joking mood. “If you’re so inclined, you can follow that dreaminess up to the depths of the Nunavut reserve, or you can go on home to Liberty. I won’t mind.”

This made him smile a little more and he opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by his own look of concern. I turned to see what he was looking at, thinking Loki had started shapeshifting or something. Loki wasn’t the problem, though—he was as joyful as ever, having summoned his encyclopedia to him so he could read aloud to the little girl from the first table he visited—it was the man sitting in the corner. The same grey-eyed specimen as the night before. There was something odd about him that I couldn’t put my finger on, but it didn’t take long for Mitch to put a name to it.

“He’s sitting the same way,” He breathed. “Exactly the same way. Tell me that ain’t creepy.”

“Normally it wouldn’t be.” I said, feeling my heart rate increase a little. “But, uh, the fact that it should be impossible by the laws of physics to sit on the back of a chair like that—”

“It’s like the place moved around him, innit?”

“Yeah.” I met Mitch’s worried soft brown gaze for a short minute and then looked out to the parking lot again. The rusty pickup and Sixty beckoned us back, but I was starting to get a really awful feeling in the pit of my stomach, like whatever had been holding the premonitions at bay was suddenly released. Like a dam holding back an ocean. Like a match hitting the lighter fluid.

“Hey, how many cars were in the lot before?” I asked.

Mitch looked out the window and I saw his face tighten and drain of color. “We need to get out of here.”

“Loki,” I called, trying to keep the worry out of my voice. “Come on, we’ve gotta head out!”

One second, the restaurant was bustling with people, and the next it was dead. There was no little girl or her parents. No Macy, no Chico. No church youth group and no short order cook. Not a single patron was in sight, though their forks, spoons, mugs, plates and bowls were all there; still laden with food; laid down midbite. Someone’s coffee was still sending up steam signals in the abandoned sunlight. Worst of all, Loki was nowhere to be seen. I turned around and around but it didn’t matter what angle I viewed it from: the inside of the restaurant was empty, even though it had just—just—been packed with people. I started to feel seriously sick to my stomach, rethinking everything about the morning. The good feelings were all gone. The look the girl gave me on my way in—somehow it made sense. The ultimate sense of goodness and perfection… it was a trap. What had we wandered into? How much danger were we in?

The grey-eyed man slumped out of his chair and began to wither before my eyes.

“Loki!” I hollered desperately, hoping to God or whoever was out there that he was just hiding under a table or something. The restaurant greyed slowly, color seeping out of every pore and cell. The food dried and shriveled; the drinks evaporated. Everything within my line of sight was aging quicker than I could register and I had a brief notion that we were like flies sitting in a spider’s web. There had been no Macy. There had never been a Chico or a short order cook. The only thing that existed was the withering, pulsing mess that took the shape of a man with grey eyes—although not for much longer. He dropped to the floor with a sickening flop and began to reassemble himself with all the life that had been sucked out of his surroundings.

I heard a cry from behind me. Mitch dropped to the ground, rolling onto his side; first clutching his knee, then his stomach. His hair began to streak grey and I panicked, realizing that we, too, must be losing our lives to this thing. But what this thing did not entirely expect was for its food to put up a fight.

“Hey!” I yelled at the grey-eyed semi-man, which clicked its jaw to tell me it recognized my voice and was going to be consuming me very soon. The overwhelming stench of sweet lavender and hot fudge came yawning out of its cavernous maw as it advanced and prepared to make its own lunch.

I picked up the platter that held the desiccated remains of the once-beautiful Belgian-waffle cake and threw it like I was trying to strike out a fastball player. The grey-eyed thing hissed wildly as the carcass of the cake with an aftertaste of harsh ceramic met its… well, what was slowly turning into a face. How pleasant. I ran to the kitchen and threw the double doors open, in search of a weapon. Angrily, it stomped after me, but the doors were weighted and slammed shut in its face. I whirled around and stomped on the doorstops, which, when properly jammed, would cut off all normal human flow to and from the kitchen. With this thing in tow, it bought me about thirty seconds. With a roar, it tore the doors of their hinges and slithered into the room on half-formed legs, gleefully eyeing me like a snack.

I reached behind me for the knife block and started throwing whatever I could. Knife after knife twirled through the air, knocking the entity in the head with handles, occasionally lodging in its abdomen—but a lot fell to the floor with a clatter, rendered useless. No way was I getting close enough to land a good stab. Instead, I took hold of the wok Kizzy—or was she the grey-eyed man all along?—had been using to fry up massive potato orders earlier. The potatoes were nothing now, just little bits of shriveled skin stuck to the patchy teflon surface. This made no difference when I struck the thing across its shifting, greyscale face; making the concave metal ring like a miniature gong. The creature matched the baaaaang-ang-ang sound with its own frustrated howl, lunging towards me with the deftness of a mountain lion. I dove to the side of the countertop and scooted backwards towards the industrial refrigerator, throwing open cupboard doors all the way, pulling out things to throw at the monster, all of which slowed it down—none of which did any real damage. I opened the last cupboard before my back was pressed against the ice-cold metal of the fridge and was taken aback to find Loki there, hiding behind a fire extinguisher.

There were no words exchanged; simply because there was no time. But the look he gave me was something I would never forget. It was one of sheer, unadulterated terror; much like how he had been in Winnipeg a few nights ago.

Where my fear should have taken over, my anger did instead. Who the hell had the right to scare a poor kid like this, just because he possessed a little magic? Who the hell had the right to be evil, anyway? Being sarcastic and generally mean-spirited is one thing, but terrorizing children was just a “no” all around. I wasn’t even thinking about how the creature wanted to consume my color, my life, my soul—I was madder than a hornet that the damn thing had scared Loki half to death when I’d spent so much time making him feel happy and at home. With what one may describe as a war cry, I ripped the fire extinguisher from the cupboard, pulled the pin, and fired away into the face of the life-sucking demon which had taken on a substantive dark-matter-esque form.

And… nothing happened.

Now, if I’d have had time to, I surely would have thrown the fire extinguisher in anger and yelled about “who even leaves an empty extinguisher in a kitchen, anyway, that’s where 90 percent of restaurant fires start, what kind of people…” and on and on and on, but of course, this was life or death, and I was kind of about to be eaten, so there were really no spaces in which I could complain. The billowing dark mass with grey, bloodshot eyes appeared to be laughing, but quickly calmed its glee and pounced on me in a bloodthirsty rage. I screamed at the top of my lungs and wriggled like a caterpillar in the clutches of a hungry bird.

The monster roared to match my scream, spewing acrid lavender-chocolate gas out of its mouth in an attempt to sedate its meal. Loki watched from the cupboard with eyes as large as two moons, glistening with tears, a hand clapped over his mouth. I tried to fight the creature’s grip to come to him, to comfort him, even just to toss him out of the way so he had a chance to get out of the restaurant—but it was useless.

All this damn time, I thought. All this work, all this bonding, all this finally-getting-a-will-to-live crap, all this finally loving someone, all this finally having a kid, and today is the day I die. I stared the monster down in all its dark energy ruthlessness. I would not die crying like I once thought I had. It could tear me limb from limb, but I wouldn’t shed a single tear.

I turned towards Loki to say a final “I love you”, but he wasn’t looking at me anymore. His terrified gaze was on something else behind me. I’d already resigned myself to the fate of being eaten by the thing crushing my ribcage, so the fact that another appeared to be coming up from behind hardly fazed me. Still. Come on, God, you’re better than that.

But it wasn’t another greyscale creature. In a flash, a figure in a black leather jacket with a two-pronged chip fork brandished wildly in the direction of the monster’s eyes leapt over me. I turned away as the metal tongs pierced the grey irises with perfect aim and I heard the dying squeals and shuffles of the thing as it writhed around on the kitchen floor, blood spattering everywhere. Loki couldn’t possibly have turned more pale, but he did turn a little green, and I pulled myself over to where he was hiding to block his view of the thing bleeding out. Mitch stabbed it once, twice, three times, and then maybe another twenty or so before it finally stopped twitching and began to dissolve. I pulled Loki to my chest and he clung to me for dear life.

“Is it dead?” I murmured into his hair.

“Yes,” he answered shakily. “Yes. It’s dead. It’s dead.”

I gathered up what strength I had left—which wasn’t very much, as my adrenaline was wearing out sooner than expected—and stood up with Loki in my arms. The pressure in my head changed somehow and my ears popped painfully, along with my vision blackening at the edges. Loki clutched his ears, and I felt the need to kneel once more, simply because standing was sapping my strength. Looking down at my hands, I realized that I, too, had aged in my encounter with the thing. My hands were gnarled like an old woman’s, with liver spots here and there, veins popping out like little bluish ribbons. I felt shorter, and smaller, and… more brittle. But I was alright. The restaurant crumbled to dust around us and we were soon standing in the bright sunlight of a normal Split Lake day. The empty lot where the restaurant had been was filled with dirt and overgrown weeds. Slowly, I felt my strength returning to me, as if fueled by an IV drip. My hands un-gnarled themselves.

Turning to the side, I saw Mitch holding the bloody chip fork and instantly rushed over to him. He was curled up in the fetal position, moaning and holding his stomach. His hair remained grey, and he looked for the world like an old Texan man ready to give up and die.

“Mitch!” I cried, and Loki leapt out of my arms to see what was wrong with him. “Mitch, what is it? What is it?”

“Hurts,” He heaved, and his soft brown eyes rolled back into his skull with excruciating pain. “Stomach… hurts…”

“Were you stabbed?” I frantically tried to pry his arms away from his gut and in my fit of panic, I repeated to Loki, “was he stabbed?”

Loki shrugged, still trembling out of fear, but there was a spark of hope in his eye as he leaned over Mitch’s head.

“Look,” he said, smoothing down the silvery, receding hair that lay there. The wheat-gold was starting to seep back into his roots.

I thanked Loki and God and tried my best to get Mitch upright. He just shook his head. “No, no, no, can’t, gonna—”

“What?” I asked, interrupting. “You’re gonna be back to your normal self soon, is what you’re gonna be. Please. You have to!”

“He’s gonna be sick is what he’s trying to say,” Loki said. Sure enough, Mitch paled a little, gave a loud heave and vomited a congealed mixture of bright red and dark brown blood into the dirt nearest him.

I freaked out. “Mitch! Oh my God, Mitch, no—”

Loki scrambled to lift his head and tilt it slightly so that he wouldn’t aspirate any of the blood, all the while reassuring me. “He’ll be okay. He’ll be okay! Look, he’s already getting younger.”

Sure enough, he was. Mitch’s gentlemanly-yet-skeletal face rounded back out to his 30-year-old-one and regained its suntanned complexion. Slowly, the wheat gold color swept down to the ends of his hair, and he was able to stop clutching his stomach and unfurl from the position he’d held himself in for the last who-knew-how-long. For what seemed like the longest time, he laid there, panting and spitting out what was left of the blood that had decided to exit his body. Gently, I reached out and pressed a hand to his side.

“Still hurt?” I asked.

He shook his head, eyes closed.

“Thank God,” I said for what seemed like the millionth time, and embraced him.

No matter what you see in the movies, I’m going to tell you the truth here: it’s really hard to embrace someone lying down. So after about ten seconds of an awkward one-sided hug, I cleared my throat, retracted, and held out my arms to Loki, who gladly returned my invitation and came in for another ribcage-crushing hug. We both needed it. After a while, Mitch found the strength to sit upright, and sat solemnly for a few moments, collecting himself.

“What happened to you?” I asked. “Why was… why was it so bad?”

He stared at the blood spatter in the dirt that he’d coughed up not too long ago. “You know… I don’t know. I shouldn’t know, really.”

“...Well, that’s a hell of an answer,” I said sarcastically, trying not to show him how much he’d scared me. “Do you or don’t you?”

“Easy,” he said gently, as if taming a wild horse. The thing was, it actually worked. I shut up immediately.

“Stomach cancer,” Loki said weakly.

Mitch looked at him in shock. “How’d you know?”

Loki shrugged. I noticed tear tracks glistening on his cheeks and hugged him closer, wishing I could just keep him safe for once. Wishing I could take it all away. “I dunno. Just do.”

I had no more words. None. All I could do was grab onto Loki and Mitch and hold them tight. We stayed like that for a little while, a bundle of three, sitting in an empty dirt lot and hugging each other like our lives depended on it. And in that moment, I think they did. I really think they did.

Eventually, we had to do something; go somewhere. So, in an almost catatonic state, I stood and began the walk over to where our vehicles were parked in the abandoned lot. Loki was quick to follow, itching to get off of the scene. I couldn’t blame him.

I took a pair of keys out of my pocket, realized they were Mitch’s, and turned back to the golden-haired gentleman who’d just suffered something close to death. He was back to his old self now, and so was I, but I couldn’t stop seeing him like that—so silvered, so grey, so in pain. It was nothing compared to his occasional knee cramps. It was like watching someone be tortured.

“My keys?” I weakly asked him, and he said “oh, sure” and dug around in his pockets for them. I quickly settled Loki in the back of my car, tucking blankets around him to keep out the chilled afternoon air. The sun wavered above us as a cloud passed under it. One final sweep of Sixty’s interior told me that the threat was gone, for now. But the ugly feeling was still pulsing in my stomach. We had to get him home, and fast. We weren’t out of the clear—in fact, we were heading towards more danger.

After smoothing down his hair and reaching in for a final hug, I pushed the car door shut as quietly as I could, not wanting to see Loki flinch from the noise. Mitch stood in front of the car, staring at the spot where the restaurant used to be with a hollow kind of expression. I walked to stand next to him, leaning on the hood a little more than I probably should have.

“Mitch?”

He hummed his response, brow furrowed, most likely trying to figure out what we had—what he had—just been through.

I had to think of a question to ask. In all honesty, the only thing I wanted to hear right now was his voice. I wanted him to be the stabilizing factor, the one who would tell me it was going to be okay with that soothing southern lilt and a little laugh to follow. But there was nothing here to laugh about. And I had nothing to ask.  
“If you want to go home… I won’t blame you.” I said rather lamely.

He let out a harsh laugh, one I hadn’t heard from him and never wanted to hear again. “Well, you can’t blame me, can ya? I think I just went though hell.” He nodded his head resolutely. “Yes, I just went through hell.”

Silence.

“Thank you for saving our lives.” I offered quietly. “Again.”

He sighed, and then turned to me with a rare smile. “You’re welcome, honey, you really are. This is—I feel like I’m living an acid trip. But I’ll be damned if I don’t see this thing through.” Again, he stared off into the distance, his hair dancing gently in the wind. “I don’t want to lie awake at night wondering whatever became of you two in Nunavut. I have to know. For better or worse. I need you two to be safe.”

My mind was still stuttering over the fact that he’d called me ‘honey’ seriously. “I-I understand. So…”

“I’m staying.” He nodded, and looked at me with all the emotion in the world glimmering in his beautiful brown eyes. “Don’t worry. I’m staying.”

Without thinking, I reached forward and drew him in for another hug, realizing with a suddenness no one can expect that I was so terrified, so terrified, of losing him. I burst into tears and clutched at his collar.

“My, you ladies sure are emotional.” He had the nerve to make a joke, but I had the nerve to smile through my tears, so it was alright.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He said, laughing a little. “As long as you don’t make me eat that cake ever again. You’ve seen what it does to me. Some creative chef you are, Miss Arsenic.”

“Oh, shut up,” I said, pressing my head to his chest and listening closely for a reassuring heartbeat under his leather jacket. “I’m a baker, not a chef.”

He made that little “hm” sound that guys do when they’re proud of someone, and he leaned forward to press a kiss to my forehead. This was the exact moment my brain short-circuited. I felt like passing out again. “How long’re we driving until Nunavut?”

“It’s going to be a while,” I said, still holding onto him, just to make sure this was real. Just to make sure he wouldn’t leave, or appear in one of my nightmares alongside the Punk and his bitch. The sun glimmered overhead, warming the air just enough to make me believe that it was going to be okay.

“Perfect.” He said. “Let’s get going. I’ll hook Sixty up to the truck if you want.”

“Please,” I said. “But let me do the driving, okay?”

“You really like that seat, huh?” He asked, pretending with a little smile that we hadn’t just gone through one of the worst experiences there are to have. “Yeah, you go ahead. I’m still feeling kind of achey, if I’m being honest.”

I strode back to the car to lean in and tell Loki what was going to happen, because if anything, I assumed he’d want a stable set of adults whom he trusted to tell him what would hopefully happen next. The second I opened the car door, however, he seemed in better spirits already.

“Told you!” He beamed.

I looked at Mitch, who was scratching the back of his head and blushing uncharacteristically like a tomato. “What’s he…?”

“Mom. You know.” Kid Loki tapped his finger to his lips and made a quick kissing face.

Both Mitch and I’s faces mirrored each other in the exact same shade of ruby red. “Alright, Prince Loki the Kid, that’s enough out of you,” I said, and laid out the plan for the next day or so, which, if I’m being honest, I came up with off the top of my head.

“Our main objective is to drive to Nunavut. The sooner we get there, the better. We’re avoiding trouble at all costs. You get a bad feeling, you tell somebody.” I looked pointedly at Loki, and then at Mitch. In wonderful reciprocation, both of them looked pointedly back at me. “Yes, this applies to me, too.”

“We stop for meals three times a day. At each meal we will abscond from the vehicles and use the bathroom and, if the time of day dictates such, change clothes. I have no idea how long this drive is going to take. Nunavut isn’t too far, but…” I looked off into the distance, searching for the right words. “I don’t know. It just… it could be a while.”

Back onto the subject. “Carry a weapon with you at all times. The world is really freaking scary at the moment. We don’t want a repeat of whatever just happened.”

“Obviously.” Loki rolled his eyes, but I could see that he was still shaken up by what had happened. As anyone would be.

“We’re safest together.” I concluded. “Any questions?”

“I can think of a few, but most of ‘em are solved with a map and compass,” Mitch said. “Shall we?”

“We shall.” I said, feeling the ugliness roosting in my stomach lighten into something more like anxious butterflies. “Grab your tow rope.”

“Will do. See if you can get Sixty pulled in snug to the rear.” He nodded toward the truck’s bumper and I said I’d do my best. Loki hopped out of the car just then, dragging his blanket cocoon over to the rear doors of the truck, where Mitch still had his nest of clothing and assorted boxes of ammunition.

“Hey, kiddo, it’s safer in the front,” Mitch told him, and I silently thanked the man for looking out for my kid.

“You don’t want to stay in the car?” I asked. “Mitch’ll be happy to rest in there with you, I’m sure.”

“No, we’re family. And we gotta stick together.” Loki said, wandering around to the passenger side of the truck and pulling the door open.

“We’re family?”

“Yeah. You two kind of made that a thing.” He looked pointedly at Mitch and I, and we just laughed.

“Get in the truck, you fifl,” I said, and Loki grinned at me, happy I was finally using some of his vernacular.

“Now you’re talking!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have a nice day, lovelies! As always, let me know what you liked/what you noticed/what I can improve on, and if you spotted any grammatical or continuity errors, do tell! I try my best to revise accordingly but it's just me - and I do forget things. In any case, I hope you have a magnificent day today! Love you lots! <3 <3 <3


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet another installment... getting close to the end now, folks! :)

CHAPTER SEVEN

★

So far, so good. The road was clear. The tunes were nice. Sheryl Crow’s silken sopralto voice perfectly complemented the rising moon across the icy hilltops, making everything seem a little brighter in the wake of what some high-mannered civics professors would call “adversity”. The caramel-apple fragrance tag dangled cheerfully in front of the air vents, and I took a few deep breaths to try to suck in the delicious-yet-calming scent.

All three of us were comfortably crammed into the cab of Mitch’s newly organized truck; Loki, sleeping off the horrors of the day; Mitch, driving; and I on some sort of night shift. It wasn’t anything special—just looking around every few minutes, scanning the horizon for potential dangers. Something to do to pass the time. At least I wasn’t about to be eaten by a soul-sucking demon, which, you know, was kind of a plus. It was a strange thing to be grateful for.

Before Mitch took over, I’d driven for the first few hours back on the road; all of which were full of fantastic scenery that no one focused on because we were all busy quelling our individual anxieties. Eventually we stopped to get out and stretch for a bit, never wandering too far from our little hitch-limousine; and we’d had dinner, but nobody ate much. Mitch’s stomach still hurt, and Loki wasn’t very hungry. I wasn’t hungry, either, but I figured I’d better stay up to keep Mitch company for the night, so I fixed myself a cold coffee from bottled water and instant granules (really a disgusting mixture if you ask me, but worth it when the caffeine kicks in) and had a banana so I wouldn’t feel faint with the overwhelming surplus of pure stimulant racing through my bloodstream. So far, things were going well. As well as they could be, anyway.

The baseball bat knocked against my knee as we hit a little rut in the just-barely-paved road, reminding me of who—or rather, what—I was supposed to be keeping an eye out for. I scanned the horizon, saw nothing, looked out of my window, out of Mitch’s window, and craned my neck to see out of the rear windshield. The truck bed’s tarp was flapping a little in the wind like an unruly cowlick, but other than that, there was nothing to be seen except an increasing amount of trees, snow, and darkness. I faced the front of the truck again and took another deep, gulping breath of caramel-apple sweetness to calm down. It didn’t really work, but it was worth a shot.

“Are we crazy?” Mitch wondered aloud. He’d been asking himself variants of the question all night, and quite honestly, I was getting tired of it. Who even knew at this point? Not me, that’s for sure. If this was some sort of shared delusion, well, maybe we’d end up in the same psychiatric hospital. Cool. See ya in the mess hall, Mitch.

I kept my caffeine-induced snarkiness to myself in favor of a more plain response. “I don’t know.”

There was silence for a little while. I listened to the grumbling of the tires over the road, which was slowly but surely becoming more and more gnarly as we moved on. Snow, gravel, and even tree roots began to reach out from the sides, making the ride even rougher. I checked our position on the map once more and although my directional skills were questionable at best, it seemed as if we were still headed in the right direction.

“How bad do you think my car’s going to get dinged up?” I asked, trying to be nonchalant, which was becoming increasingly difficult as the days—hours—minutes went by. I scratched my side. The graze wound had nearly healed over, but the scab itched like crazy and I thought about taking off the bandages once or twice, but there was no readily-available garbage receptacle. For how long I’d had that gauze slapped over my middle without a breath of fresh air, I’d definitely need to throw it in a garbage can and then get far, far away from that garbage can. So I scratched my side again and waited.

“Not too bad. Prob’ly just some undercarriage damage.” He responded. Again, there was silence. This had to be one of the most awkward car trips I’d ever taken—although, to be fair, the time I’d accidentally spilled apple juice all down my front just before a ride home from Tee was probably more awkward. Also way less dangerous. I could worry about social pressures once the whole death-by-super-freaks thing passed like a kidney stone.

I checked our perimeter as best I could once more, and listened to Sheryl Crow’s serene voice for a few minutes before asking,

“How did you know?”

“How did I know what?” His brow furrowed in confusion.

“That it was stomach cancer. When the… when the thing… got you?” I didn’t know how to phrase the question. I didn’t even know if I was supposed to be asking. But I was curious, because he’d genuinely scared me, being on the brink of death like that. I had two people that I cared very much about now, and I didn’t want either one of them to die as a result of my callous actions, much less leave me alone with survivor’s guilt. These were whole people I felt—I was—somewhat responsible for, if only for a brief amount of time. Mitch looked at me long enough to make me cough uncomfortably and jerk my head slightly in the direction of the road, to which he gave an amused snort and returned to watching the darkening horizon.

“It’s just something you know. I can’t tell you in a way that makes sense.” He sighed. “It was just like… I don’t know, a big banner hanging over me inside my skull, like one of those parade banners, only this one said “CANCER” on it. And I…”

“What?” I asked after a moment. He looked pale and nervous in the glow of the truck’s dashboard, which was perturbing at the very least, for someone who was usually so laid back.

“Nothing. I just couldn’t help but feel it, you know. Like maybe it was in my future.” He blinked, and then shook his head with a dry little laugh to follow. “I’m sure I sound crazy.”

“I think we’re all crazy at this point,” I returned gently.

Loki turned over in his sleep, murmuring to himself. Mitch and I both glanced in the rearview mirror to check on him, and then I went back to my usual perimeter sweep. Nothing there, thank God. The tarp was still flapping, Sixty was still moving soundlessly behind us… wait.

It took me a minute or two to realize the tapping sound I was hearing was Mitch’s thumbs drumming softly on the steering wheel. He still had that look about him; how I imagined I must have looked after each monster we encountered. Pale. Nervous. Worn out. His brow was still furrowed, and although I liked the confused look he sometimes had, this was just concerning.

I reached out and patted his shoulder as nicely as I could. “You want me to take over driving for a little bit?”

“Nah, no, I’ll be fine. Thanks, though.” He said with a sigh. He didn’t relax, though. He seemed to be lost in thought, soft brown eyes still locked on the road, but calculating something behind his forehead. I gave it a few minutes, and then had to ask, because I’m irreparably nosy.

“Are you okay?”

“Yep. Fit as a fiddle.” He winced as he said it, though, which really made me worry. I was about to ask if his stomach was starting to kick up again when he blurted,

“My mom died of it.”

I realized what he meant, and sat there for a moment, shocked into silence. The baseball bat’s handle thumped against my knee as we hit a particularly rough patch of road, and it was just barely out of time with the thumping of Mitch’s thumbs on the steering wheel. I’m never really sure what to say when confronted by someone else’s tragedy, but I try to treat it as if it were my own; so I said,

“Oh. I’m… I’m really sorry.”

“S’okay.” He said, flashing a curt little smile and lifting a hand to anxiously rake it through his hair. “Really. People have been sorry for years about it. I just think… being her only kid, you know, I think maybe it’s coming for me.” He drew a sharp breath in through his teeth and laughed again, still sounding anxious to the point of a breakdown. “Like it’s one of those monsters. That’s what made the damn thing so scary, you know. Because that thing… it just speeds up time. Before you know it, you’re living out your own death.”

“Yeah,” I said softly, thinking about the way the creature in the restaurant had sucked the life and essence out of everything. “Yeah. That was terrifying.”

There was silence for a few moments, in which I looked at Mitch out of my periphery, trying to gauge how he was doing. The horizon was still clear. I took a deep breath and was about to say something completely trivial when he continued.

“She didn’t even make it until 40.”

That shut me up again. If Mitch had ever truly lost his easy-going nature, it was now; and I understood it—as much as an outsider you’ve known for five days can, anyway. That monster had scared the hell out of him, even more than the gang members or the shapeshifter or anything else in his life that might have made him seem any less sane than anyone else. And it had done so by merely showing him his future. Or what he had to hope was just one future—maybe it could still be changed. I would have told him as much, but again, he continued.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” He laughed once more, and I noticed that that was a kind of nervous tick of his, laughing to brush things off. I took a deep breath, pushed my reservations aside, and leaned over to wrap my arm around him in a half-hug of solidarity.

“That’s okay. You don’t have to know. But someone might as well hear it.” I said, trying to focus on how my seatbelt was digging into my side rather than how it felt to lean my chin on his shoulder, or how he had the most comforting of earthen scents, or how he was almost certainly crying at this point.

His voice sounded choked up when he spoke. “Her name was Alice.”

“Pretty name.” I replied, content to continue hugging him and patting his shoulder.

“Yeah. She was pretty. Beautiful, I mean.” He sniffed and sighed, reached a hand up to swipe at his eyes, and readjusted his grip on the steering wheel. “Alice Emerald Duncan. Well, Minske, but she married Dad and became a Duncan. She was always so kind, you know that? One of my favorite things was to have friends over, ‘cause she’d go out of her way to play games with us and make us snacks and such, and we always felt taken care of. That’s just it. That’s what I loved the most. I always felt taken care of.” He sniffed again, and cleared his throat. “You got any tissues with you?”

“Probably. Let me look.” I gave him a final pat on the back and bent down to the bag at my feet, searching for the tissue box I’d snitched from the motel. “Alice sounds like a wonderful woman.”

“Yeah, she sure was.” He thanked me when I handed him a Kleenex and carefully blew his nose with one hand, keeping the other on the wheel, still drumming his thumb on the worn leather, but less now. “Are we headed to the right up here?”

I checked the fork in front of us, illuminated by the truck’s antiquely dim headlights, and referenced the map; which may or may not have had some lines drawn on it in pen and Sharpie to make sure I knew exactly where we were going. “Yyyyep, looks like right.”

The truck lurched forward onto the right fork, which was even more snow-laden. The crunch of the wheels on gravel softened, and I started to feel lighter, like the caffeine was finally starting to let me go. Tree branches combed leaflessly past the windows of the truck and I felt myself going into a slight daze with exhaustion, wondering at the soft, gentle black woods outside the doors. I didn’t want to fall asleep yet, though.

“...So she died of stomach cancer?”

“Yep.” Mitch’s voice cracked like an autumn leaf crushed underneath a school child's sneaker. “December seventeenth, 1993. Didn’t make it to Christmas, but I was always glad she lived through my birthday, even if it was horrible near the end.”

The conversation hushed for a moment, and Alice was alive in our thoughts. I wondered who Mitch looked more like, his mother, or his father. “And now you think…?”

“I don’t know what to think.” He cut in, and then apologized. “I’m sorry. I just… I’ve been trying to avoid the subject in my own head, I guess. I was eleven when she died, so it was… it was difficult.”

“Awful, I bet.”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “And… well, to think you’re headed down the same road…”

“Doubly awful with a shot of terrifying,” I offered.

He nodded again, and we were quiet for a bit. He tucked the Kleenex into his pocket, but kept sniffing, so I handed him another one.

“Did you ever think of getting it checked out? At the doctor’s? I’m sure they have the technology by now.” I couldn’t help myself. It wasn’t helpful to just start naming solutions, but I was genuinely curious, and if it backfired I would just have to pay the price. (The full saying, after all, is “curiosity killed the cat… but satisfaction brought it back”—as any English teacher will be loath to tell you.)

Mitch just scoffed. Not rudely, but hopelessly, like he’d been down that line of thinking before and nothing had come of it. “Health insurance ain’t worth two cents in Liberty. I don’t know if you’ve noticed by the looks of this truck, but I don’t have much money to my name.”

“And yet you seem willing enough to spend it on us.” I pointed out.

“Yeah, well. It’s a spontaneous kinda thing.” He looked at me and I could see a little bit of light coming back to his eyes, though they were red and a little wet from his tears. His eyelashes were dark with salt water and it was just another thing I found strangely beautiful about him in that moment, glowing in the light of the dashboard. I looked away before he could and busied myself with stuffing the tissue box back into my bag.

“I get that.” I murmured. “It was kind of a spontaneous thing to help Kid out. Could have just left him at the police station and had them sort it out. But… I don’t know. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave him and wonder if he really had a home somewhere in the sky with two parents looking for him.”

That brought a little bit of a smile back to the corners of Mitch’s lips, which I was grateful for. “You mind if I ask you something, (Y/N)?”

“Not at all,” I said, lying through my teeth. It always sends me into a worried frenzy when people ask me questions like that, because it either means I’m in trouble, or it means it’s going to be a question I really don’t want to answer.

“What was your childhood like?”

Well, I stood corrected; apparently there was a third kind of question—one that didn’t make me want to grit my molars together and cook up a storm of fallacies. This one actually had me stumped for a little bit. Mitch turned the windshield wipers on as snowflakes began to dance in front of us, gently at first, then flurrying across the glass and smacking into each other. I caught myself wondering what it would be like if ballerinas on stage started out as graceful as falling snow but by the end were whacking each other over the head and piling up every time they tried to do an arabesque or plie.

“Uh… funny you should ask that. I guess it was okay.” I shrugged, even though Mitch was too busy trying to navigate the ever-narrowing road ahead to see what gestures I was making.

“Okay, then a follow-up question. Do you trust me?”

“Of course,” I said a little too quickly, and he took his eyes from the road for a precious second to give me one of the most skeptical looks I’ve ever seen.

“Well, you sure don’t act like it. Trust is kind of imperative in a situation like this, you know.” He continued on, and let me stew in my own awkward silence for a minute or two. Then he began reciting what I can only describe as the world’s corniest autobiography.

“Well, howdy, I’m Mitch Walter Duncan,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road, but straightening up a little and plastering a golden smile across his face for full effect. I had to laugh, it just looked so goofy. “My maw’s name is Alice Emeralde Minske-Duncan and my paw’s name is Walter—we call him Wally—Duncan. I’m from Roseville, Texas, and I learned to tie my shoes when I was nine because up until then I only wore cowboy boots and rain boots.”

“Are you serious?” I giggled.

“That ‘n’ I couldn’t make a meal to save a life. More often than not my mom had to rescue a thing or two from the stove or oven because I forgot about it.” He grinned toothily and I couldn’t help but laugh some more, thinking of Loki burning the living daylight out of those poor Cheerios. Maybe I was just naturally drawn to people who had bad cooking experiences.

“I don’t have any siblings, but I did have a rowdy pack of cousins growing up and let me tell you that they are the primary reasons for every broken bone or torn ligament in the younger generations of my family. I just so happened to be lucky enough to not see them as often as the neighbor kids did, because those two were really put through the wringer. Terry broke both his elbows, once, when Darryl threw him into the water hole at an extraordinarily bad angle—it was like watching a human pinball, only a lot less fun.”

“Dark humor for you, Mitch,” I joked. He smiled wider and continued.

“Couldn’t wipe his own for the next three months.”

“Aw, gross!”

“But hilarious. And anyways, I mucked up my knee after that.” He grinned.

“So… is that where you learned to be such a crack shot with that rifle?” I asked, wondering if that had been it, or if he’d had some sort of stint as a sniper in the army—because with the way he snuck up on us that night in particular, he totally could have been.

“Yeah, actually. Darryl and Wiley—my older two cousins—started taking me hunting when I was little, just after Mom passed. They were a saving grace in that time, I think. And it helped to take out my rage on tin cans. Never an animal, mind you. I mean, I would hunt animals, but I could never kill one for the sake of anger or killing.” He dropped from his humorous rant to explain his coping mechanisms in great detail, much to my interest and slight amusement. “I liked doing that little prayer thing, like the Natives do, where they give thanks to the animal for becoming food for us to eat and materials for us to use. Stuff like that. I don’t think I ever did it proper, and Wiley always looked at me sideways for praying to a dead deer, but I felt better doing it somehow. Like I wasn’t just reaping without consequence.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. But that’s what I did. I almost think that’s what helped me get to be such a good shot, but I can’t give the universe all my credit.” His dorky grin reappeared suddenly, and I found myself smiling automatically with him. “I’m just a damn good hunter is what I am.”

“Nice and concise.” I chided. “But interesting.”

“And what’s your story, (Y/N)-Never-Trust-A-Man?” He joked right back, and I slapped his shoulder lightly.

“You’re not getting anything out of me if you call me names.”

“Okay, (Y/N)-the-Trouble-Prone.”

I laughed so hard Loki stirred and mumbled something in his sleep rather angrily. Out of habit, I asked, “what did you say?”, and he piped up in a tired voice,

“Will you two shut up?”

Cue another awkward silence for the next twenty minutes. Loki was able to fall back asleep, tucking himself further into the cocoon of blankets he’d created while Mitch and I could barely contain our giddy laughter. It was odd how certain circumstances could bring people together. I mean, I was literally just handing the poor man a tissue as he considered his fate and that of his long-gone mother, and now we were struggling not to laugh because Loki’s tone was something out of a family comedy. Respectfully, we remained quiet for a while to make sure he got enough sleep, because no matter how fun it would be to stay up late and completely disregard any semblance of a sleep schedule, neither one of us wanted to deal with a sleep-deprived crabby Loki. But this didn’t stop us from sneaking glances at each other and nearly bursting into giggles all over again.

Eventually, Mitch whispered, “so what was your childhood like?”

“I’m telling you, man, it was normal.” I responded under my breath, hoping Loki’s hearing wasn’t too sensitive. It seemed as if he was deeply asleep, but one could never quite tell with a godly child such as him. “There’s really nothing that stands out. My parents weren’t too mean, but they weren’t too loving either. They were the right mix of over-reactive and respectful.”

“Odd mix,” Mitch said thoughtfully.

“Yeah, but it was the right mix.” I couldn’t think of much else to say. “Um, I used to—and I still do—hang out at this little thrift store. I know the owner, her name’s Theodora, and she’s like my second mom.” I tucked a stray hair behind my ear, reminiscing on the lovely memories I had with Tee. “She used to take me out for ice cream on my birthdays and stuff like that. She was always super sweet to me, but also kinda… disciplinary. In a good way. She’s the kind of person to whack you upside the head when you do something stupid, and I find that I respect most people like that.”

Mitch hummed and nodded in acknowledgement, though his expression didn’t necessarily convey agreement.

“Not that I’d raise my kids that way.” I explained. “And I wasn’t raised that way, either. I don’t hit. It’s just—I don’t know, I think Tee has a lot to do with why I am the way I am today.”

“Untrusting and secretive?”

“You really won’t let that go, will you?” I asked, laughing, and then clapping a hand over my mouth. I chanced a look in the rearview mirror at Loki’s slumbering form, which thankfully hadn’t moved since his last shuffle. He was still tucked up in my lavender comforter with Fenris the stuffed dog, curled up with his back to us.

“No.” He smiled wistfully. “No, I won’t.”

“Would you like to elaborate on that?”

“No.” He and I burst into soundless laughter at that, and I thought more about how odd it was that we could be doing this. That we could be having such a good time after everything that had happened. We crossed paths with death today, and here we were, laughing in the cab of a pickup truck. God, was it wonderful. I felt a sudden anxious pang in my gut.

“Mitch?”

“Hmm?” He asked, glancing at the map to gauge where we were supposed to be heading next. The truck puttered forward onto a gradual incline and eventually came to a crossroads, where we turned left. The snow was still falling on the lighter side, and although I was generally a very paranoid driver myself, I was glad Mitch was carrying us through the miniature snowstorm.

“Can we really trust anything around us?”

I heard him sigh from beside me and there was a moment where I was almost lulled to sleep, watching the snowflakes dance past the windshield. The soft glow of the dash lights was enough to put me in a mini stupor, but I was still worried about how well the last few hours had been going. It seemed like any happiness might be the work of some luring entity now. With a sinking feeling I realized that the night spent at the motel, with all its beautiful realization, was probably a result of coming into contact with the conniving, soul-sucking thing.

“I think we can. As long as we got that gut feeling to go on, I think we’re okay.” He reached over and patted me on the shoulder gently, which put me a little bit at ease. Although I couldn’t help but wonder: how much of that town was fake? How much of the emotions I felt there were manufactured, wheedled into existence by the grey demonic creature in Macy’s restaurant? How much of my sudden will to live was a complete and utter lie?

I didn’t want to think about it. I didn’t want to return to that place. Clearing my throat, I asked, “Hey, so… should we break out some winter gear, now that it’s snowing?”

“We will.” Mitch answered, pulling the truck forward into a wider road with a bank of signs next to it, indicating that we were near the regional park we’d planned to stop over at for the remainder of the night. He chose the turnoff that led to the parking lot and we rolled forward onto the fluffy, freshly-fallen snow. “Soon’s the truck starts to get cold. The heater’s really been turned up for a while.”

I hummed a vague response, returning to my view of the ballerina-snowflakes.

The post at the entrance of the park was shuttered, which was understandable, seeing as it was something like midnight—maybe even closer to one in the morning. The parking lot was empty as well, which made it easy for us to get our limo rig tucked into two (closer to six, really) spaces. Snow tumbled down from the heavens like little feathers from angels’ wings, and the dark forest surrounding us seemed more serene than dangerous. My own anxieties increased almost tenfold at the sense of security it gave me, despite the premonition in my stomach remaining at about the same level of caution—God, was it ever hard to tell the two apart. Mitch switched the truck off and the engine fell silent, emitting the occasional tk-tk as it cooled down in the northern air.

“Gonna be hard to sleep upright,” Mitch said, glancing back at Loki, who was comfortably taking up the entire back seat, snoozing soundly.

“Yeah.” I said, wondering if I could manage to wrangle a blanket out from under the little prince without him waking up and having a life-threatening fit. Life-threatening to a blanket thief, anyway. “I can sleep in the car, if you want. It’ll give you more room to lie down.”

“The car’ll be cold, and I don’t want you to run it for no reason. Best to just stay in here.” Mitch reached for his rifle and gently lifted it up and over the passenger seat. I leaned forward so he wouldn’t whack me on the head by accident and watched as he carefully tucked it beside him with the safety still on. In the dark stillness of the truck, I found myself missing the comforting idle of the engine and the swaying movement as we talked. I missed hearing Mitch’s voice, too.

“Hey, Mitch?”

“Hey what?”

“What really made you want to follow us?”

“I told you. I just had a feeling.”

“But was it a premonition?”

Mitch sighed and turned to his left, trying to get comfortable in the suddenly very upright seat. After a minute of hard thought, he responded. “When certain assumptions come into play in your life, you take every chance you get to live a little. But I guess it was a premonition, too. I just didn’t know it would be… this bad.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said, wondering if we might be more similar than I first realized. He, too, was searching for spontaneity. For a reason to live, other than to be a worker bee in a suffocating hive.

“No, really.” He laughed, although it sounded muffled, like he was trying to cover his mouth. Probably so the sleeping bear cub in the back wouldn’t hear him. “Y’all are great. It’s just the supernatural stuff that’s got me a little wound up.”

“Oh, come now, Mitch, it’s just the great outdoors,” I quipped, and then fell silent. I think I fell asleep, really. It was dark, and warm, and the passenger seat was really comfortable. But at some point, Mitch’s voice pulled me from the dark corridor of drowsiness:

“Hey (Y/N).”

I mumbled something in the shape of a “hey what”.

He paused, as if searching for something to say. “Where’d you get the Impala?”

“Where?” I yawned and murmured some more. “From a dealer at a classic car show.”

“It’s beautiful.” His voice just barely came across to me now. I wondered whether he was really speaking quietly or whether I was about to pass out from exhaustion. Where had the time gone? Where had all my caffeine gone, more importantly? Apparently out of my bloodstream. I yawned again and thanked him before drifting off into a blissfully dreamless sleep, watching black tree branches dance mesmerizingly on the backs of my eyelids.

I was awoken by something at perhaps 4:36 in the morning. I couldn’t see the clock on the truck’s dashboard, but I had a feeling it was about that time; and I was beginning to trust superstitious feelings more and more. Would I ever be able to return to normal civilian life after this? I doubted it. More likely than not I’d be arrested and detained at some point for the public disturbance of screaming cuss words at a banana in the produce aisle because it looked at me the wrong way. But don’t let my mind get ahead of you: 4:36 in the morning.

“Mom.”

Of course it was our resident prince.

I tried to force my eyes open, but I was so dead tired it felt like there were lead weights on both of them. Honestly, if I even had a feather on top of each eyelid, I would have taken that to be an insurmountable weight. I gave up on opening my eyes and tried my mouth instead, which was as dry as an Egyptian tomb. “What?” I croaked.

“I need to use the bathroom.”

Lovely. What is it with kids and being able to sense utter inconvenience? I sighed and peeled my eyes open manually before catapulting myself upright to look for a flashlight. Eventually I found one in my bag, and turned it onto the dimmest setting. The map was still taped to the dashboard, and thankfully, it had a myriad of helpful icons in the regional park area—one of which was labeled “General Restrooms”.

“Well, it’s only a short walk.” I mused. “Alright. Come on.”

Loki seemed conflicted. His green eyes danced like glass marbles in the glow of the flashlight. “Should we wake Mitch?”  
I considered this, looking over at our southern gentleman’s delicate sleeping form. We did say we’d keep together as a family unit to be safe. But we also agreed to follow our gut’s instinct, and the weird, anxiety-esque feeling in mine wasn’t exactly screaming anything out of the ordinary. “We’ll be fine. It’s only a short walk.”

“He’s got the gun, though.” Loki pointed out. In response, I held up the baseball bat, which looked rather tasteful in the light, with a slight shine at its edge.

“We’ll be fine,” I repeated.

“Okay.” Loki nodded, and together, we swung our doors open and stepped out into the cold.

“Gah, it’s freezing out here,” I said, shivering and tucking my denim jacket closer around me. “Hey, kiddo—are you even cold?”

Loki stood in ankle deep-snow, still wearing his pilgrimish clothes, looking off into the distance. He snapped back to attention at my question, but shook his head, black curls bouncing on his forehead. “No. Not really. I know it’s cold, but…” He turned in the direction he’d been staring, and lifted his head slightly, as if catching something on the wind. “It feels more like home, actually. We must be close. We must be close!”

“Alright, you charlatan, now’s not the time. You said you had to use the bathroom, so let’s go.” I was a tad bit remorseful at having to cut off his joy at being so close to home, but I also desperately wanted to get back into the truck, where it was warm, and comfortable, and smelled like a slice of the world’s best apple pie.

It looked for a moment as if he were preparing to stick his tongue out at me, but he thought better of it, nodded, and fell into step as we marched through the snow to the opposite side of the lot. There was a trail there, leading into the woods, but it was wide enough for a car to go through and led to a series of different campsites, which all shared one main bathroom. I just prayed it was still in operation, since it didn’t seem like there was anyone else on the grounds. I mean, there weren’t any other cars in the parking lot, and we hadn’t yet traversed up to the nature center to see if anyone was on duty there. If I had to guess, I’d say they weren’t exactly the type to have a nighttime security crew, either.

The snow had stopped falling a while back, although the sky was still shrouded in darkness, which meant that the cloud cover was pretty heavy. The beam of the flashlight danced along the glittering pathway, and each of our footsteps scattered snow in a different direction. It hadn’t had the chance to get that crunchy top layer yet, so we walked, silently, up to the crossing in the trail where the ‘General Restrooms’ were situated. Each step was pronounced with a little puff! as our shoes kicked the powdered water out of the way.

The general restrooms were held in a low, squat building, though they were not in disrepair like the motel we’d recently stayed at (thankfully). As customary, there were three doors: a bathroom for men, a bathroom for women, and a family restroom; which also had a little shower icon on it. Good to know, I thought to myself. Not that we would be staying here long enough to bathe more than once—but good to know all the same.

“Hurry up, then, I’ll wait for you here.” I said, and flapped my hand in the general direction of the bathrooms. Loki nearly tripped over his own shoes as he ran up the two snow-dusted concrete steps to the small building.

And now, to wait.

Rick’s bat felt light in my hand. I wondered whether it had always been that light, or if I was just confabulating things because it was so early in the morning. I gave a sigh and began to wander around the front side of the building, hoping we’d be out of here soon. The silence of the forest was almost enough to drive someone crazy. It’s the kind of silence that makes you think you’re hearing something; a little keening sound, perhaps, except it’s all inside your head and you just can’t process the weight of the quietness. I always wondered if that keening sound was the electricity going through my head, but never wanted to ask. It seemed like such a stupid question. 

It was that way now, though. I started walking in circles to ease the keening in my ears, to give my brain something to register other than the lack of sound. I kicked snow here and there—puff, puff, puff—and tapped the bat in my palm. I pulled my jacket closer and prayed for the wind to come whistling through the trees to ease the soundlessness. Then I heard something out of the ordinary.

At first I thought it might be a squirrel or a bird, but the squirrels would be in hibernation, and the birds—well, okay, some did stay for winter, but I hadn’t heard any thus far. Did birds sleep? I couldn’t be sure. But this noise was different. It was a kind of quick shuffle, almost a footstep, but not quite. I crept up to the front of the building and peered around the left side, not wanting my flashlight to catch anything in its light, because I didn’t know that I wouldn’t take off running immediately.

Then I heard the sound again. Shuffle-shuff. This time, it was paired with a wailing cry, close enough that I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up; like a cross between a harrowingly large and wounded animal and something borne of pure terror. I’d heard it come from behind me, on the other side of the building; so I swung around and flattened my back on the left side of the brick-laid building, praying to whoever might be listening that the thing wouldn’t come around the corner. I tried to calm myself down, thinking that maybe it was just a lonely elk or moose or something. They were known to make some pretty haunting sounds, and on the off chance that they could smell fear—well, I didn’t want to take that chance. So I kept my breathing even, clutching the baseball bat to my chest and sliding along the wall to the back of the building, trying to mentally calculate how I could possibly get Loki out of the bathrooms without encountering some kind of large animal, or, if worst came to worst, getting hurt in the process. I didn’t want to consider that this might be a monster. Hell, I was practically screaming to myself that it wouldn’t be, it just couldn’t be, we’d put up with too much shit so far to have that curveball thrown at us. I wished we’d brought Mitch. Even if it was an elk or a moose, he could probably take it down with that crack-shot rifle of his, or at least scare it off.

'Cowardly even now, aren’t we?' My brain chided me cruelly. I didn’t even have time to respond before a sequence of noises came that scared the ever-living bejeezus out of me: the bathroom door slamming shut, Loki gasping, and the creature giving another ear-splitting wail.

There were about a million things that crossed my mind in that second, but I had no time to think of any of them. Where I expected to be running back to the truck to get Mitch, I was surprised to see myself running around to the front of the building, ready at a moment’s notice to kill in the name of my son.

As is customary when encountering the eleventy-hundredth monster you’ve seen in only five (six, if you counted this morning) days, I let out a string of curse words that would have made Theodora drop dead and then come back to life to whoop me with a wooden spoon. Loki was reasonably safe, still on the top step of the building, but the thing making all that eerie noise was—  
I didn’t even know what to call it. The thing took a vague shape of a woman, but had gleaming black eyes that dripped oily tears onto its—her?—face, and she was bundled up in time-yellowed lace that looked like it could have been a wedding dress for a mummy. She twisted her head to look at me, and her neck crackled like a Jiffy popper on the stove, which made me think, “damnit, how am I ever going to be able to eat popcorn again?” and smiled with a face full of ugly fangs. The bedraggled corpse-bride-thing took a step—not a small one, mind you, just one step—towards Loki, and I felt something snap within.

One minute I was standing, hackles raised, at the side of the building; and the next I was advancing to what seemed now like less of a nightmare and more of a seriously-irritating thing to be disposed of readily. With a war cry to rival even the most brave of men, I lunged at the creature and took her down with a major-league swing to the head. Her skull folded like a house of cards blowing down but I just kept swinging, one bloodying strike after another after another. She was screaming the whole time, too, but I hardly paid attention. All I wanted was for the damn things to leave us alone. I kept yelling that, too, over and over.

“LEAVE!”

Thwack.

"US!"

Thwuck.

“ALONE!”

Shluck.

-

It was another lonely night at the camping outlet. Rick was perfectly happy to be alone with his stack of comic books, though—they were just begging to be read, all thirty-two of the best editions he’d had since he was a teenager. He’d had a few customers come in here and there, but most of the products he sold were online, anyway, so it didn’t matter much that there wasn’t that much foot traffic.

...And still, he wondered about that mom and her kid. It had been something like three days since he’d last seen them. He licked his finger before turning yet another glossy page.

The feeling in his gut had been growing stronger over the past few days and nights, too. He thought it had been quelled when he gave that woman the baseball bat, like he felt he was supposed to—he even ended up telling his superior, Renee, about the events of that night. She was a little upset that he hadn’t asked the woman to pay for the bat, but she was also understanding. And besides, she took the check out of his tips, anyway. Rick smiled to himself. That was just how Renee rolled. She had even been politely concerned enough to suggest that he visit the doctor, if the ‘feeling’ was perhaps something biological—maybe you’re just sick, and you’re not feeling the full effects yet, she’d said. But he declined; he knew it couldn’t be that. Rick wasn’t quite sure how he knew, but he knew. The same way he knew when he’d found those antique pictures in one of the storeroom buckets.

As he was sitting behind the counter, something in the air changed. Rick leaned forward in his seat, setting the comic down on the countertop, wondering if perhaps he’d missed a customer coming into the store. But it was incredibly early in the morning for that, and he had been right by the door for the last few hours, at least. The feeling he’d had ever since giving away the baseball bat intensified, so much so that it was almost painful—it blistered his every nerve ending, and he even thought he heard some kind of keening, almost tiny screaming sound in his ear—but then it all dissipated as suddenly as it had appeared.  
Rick stood up, greatly confused and concerned. He gave himself a little pat down, a little shoulder shake, a quick mental exam. Everything seemed alright. Everything… was alright. He smiled and plunked back down in his chair, kicking his feet up on the counter and returning to his issue of Peter Parker: Spider-Man.

Finally, his baseball bat had done some good.

-

It took seventeen hits to the head before she stopped squirming.

She writhed like a worm. It was a ghastly sight to see the dark life drain out of her, but I was ready to kill anything that came for us in that moment. I was ready to fight the entire world if that was what it took to get us some god damned peace around here.

Her blood wet the snow like motor oil on shaved ice and I realized the front half of my body was soaked in it, too. My hands reached out in front of me, seeming far away, trembling as if they belonged to someone else in this moment. Then the silence fell like another blanket around us and I realized I’d been sitting atop a corpse for the last two minutes. Slowly, I dragged myself upright and leaned on the bat, hucking and spitting beside her head. Not that I’ve ever been a person to spit, necessarily—it just felt like something that needed to be done. Maybe a final mark, to show whoever was watching that there would be no more cowardice—because there were more. Of course there were—we’d been watched since that first night out on the road. They’d seen everything and they weren’t going to stop to try to kill us or eat us or suck out our souls—

“Mom?” Loki’s voice floated eerily through the dark night. I stood bolt upright and tried to see him in the dark, realizing that in the struggle, I’d thrown my flashlight into the snow somewhere.

“Loki,” I said, glancing at the corpse out of the corner of my eye. The ball of anxiety in my gut hadn’t quite settled yet. In fact, it was still jumping around like a little monster, bang-a-ranging on my intestines and hopping up and down in terror. “Stay right there, I’ll come to you.”

“Okay.”

Slowly, I picked my way up the dark steps, and my vision adjusted so that I could see Loki in the dark. He looked as pale as a sheet, but thankfully wasn’t shaking too badly.

“You okay?”

I saw him nod.

“Can you do that little flame trick for me?”

Suddenly, a brilliant burst of emerald green fire lit up the palm of his pale hand, and I squinted momentarily to adjust for the change in light. His face looked solemn in the green-tinted glow. I reached in to brush his hair back from his face, but thought better of it, because my hands were stained immeasurably with the blood-oil that had seeped out of the Canadian mummy. Loki didn’t even look scared, though he must have been—he’d gone through so much in the past five days… the past twenty-four hours…

“I’m so sorry,” I choked over the words, not sure anymore what was happening. I wanted so badly to reach out to him, but he seemed untouchable in the firelight. Well, that was an understatement; he was quite literally untouchable. At least, the hands cupping the flames were. “You shouldn’t have to see any of this. We should just get you home. We should drive straight—”

“Shush.” He commanded.

I couldn’t stop. “But you just saw—”

“I just saw you being brave is all.” He said, though I saw his face flicker as he glanced over my shoulder at the body. “It’s just a monster. You just got rid of a monster.”

“Still,” I said.

“We’d better get used to it.” He said, almost dejectedly, sounding too adult for someone his size. I wondered how much of a kid his parents were going to be left with. If they were going to be left with any kid at all—at this rate, with the amount of monsters we were encountering, that was debatable. “There’s a shower in there.”

“In-? Oh.” I looked down at his finger, pointed at the bathroom he’d just come from, and then at my entire shirtfront. “Yeah. I hope this stuff rinses out well.”

“It will.” He said, and led the way into the family bathroom, which made my eyes burn even more with the motion-activated fluorescent lighting. At least one of the panels was out, which gave it a sort of horror-movie lighting, but the only thing more horrific that I could see was my reflection in the mirror.

“Yeesh,” I said, and immediately strode over to the sink to put my head in it and scrub my face and hair. “That door have a lock on it?”

“Yep.” Loki said. “Want me to lock it?”

“Yep,” I repeated, nearly smacking my head against the basin as the cold water shocked the life out of me. “Hey kiddo?”

“Mm?”

“You’re not gonna be too messed up by this, are you?”

He stood next to me, waiting patiently as I raked the orange-soda scented soap through my hair and tried my best to wash all the motor oil-blood down the drain. It seemed to have congealed awfully quickly and was making my shirt stick to my chest and stomach, which was, frankly, one of the most disgusting feelings in the entirety of the universe. Finally, he spoke.  
“It’s a lot scarier out here, (Y/N), but I think that’s because…”

“Yeah?” I was impatient, but my adrenaline was still riding high and it made my hands shake something awful, so I figured Loki could forgive me for a little impertinence.

“My father and mother are the king and queen of the gods, (Y/N). They take care of us. They can handle anything. They can handle war, darkness, pestilence, famine…”

I swung my head out of the basin and wrung out my hair, tying it in a neat knot at the top of my head. I’d figure out what to do with it later. Loki commanded my attention with those big, round, green eyes of his and he stared me down as he said,

“You… you can barely handle anything.”

I snorted. “Well thanks, kiddo. It means a lot.”

He grabbed my hand, which was freshly scrubbed of all rotting monster juice. “I’m not joking. Humans are fragile. You don’t live long, you’re susceptible to disease and—and cancers, and everything under the sun. Even the sun itself. You kill each other all the time; you don’t really need dark beings doing the work for you. You’ve never even seen this many monsters before in your life.”

“Actually, I saw two together in a room once,” I said, thinking momentarily of Punk and Abby.

He glared at me. “The point is you’re incredibly delicate and I wouldn’t waste money on an army of you because I wouldn’t be able to win anything. You all die like moths in the flame. How could you protect me, when… when I’m so used to having the king and queen of the gods protecting me?”

“This is a really long answer to a short question,” I said, wishing my nervous humor would shut itself up for once.

“It’s terrifying to be out here with only human protection. I’ve never been so scared in my life.” He said, tugging on my hand so hard it hurt. “But there’s something else.”

“What’s that?”

His grip on my hand tightened even more and I was just about to make some sort of quip about him accidentally crushing a bone or two when he said in a small voice, “You love me.”

It was five o’clock in the morning, and I couldn’t handle the amount of maternal admiration and pride that hit me like a tsunami, so I turned back toward the mirror and started making jokes again.

“You know, I’m taking you seriously, I promise. But you said something about cleaning this gunk off?”

He puffed out his cheeks indignantly and then let the breath of air go. “Yes, fine, fine. If you take off the clothes that have been soaked in her blood and wrap them around the pine cone I gave you, they’ll be returned to their clean state.”

“The pine cone.” I deadpanned.

“The pine cone,” He nodded toward my pocket, as if he had X-ray vision and could tell it was still there.

“...Alright.” I stepped into one of the shower stalls and shut the door. “Do I have to tie some sort of fancy knot or something?”

“No, just cover the pine cone all the way,” He responded.

“Gotcha.” I said with finality, frowning internally and wondering if I could possibly learn this level of witchcraft, because anything to help me do the laundry on my days off from work would be a godsend.

“But I will be okay.” He said aloud, scuffing his shoe on the floor. I could almost picture him standing there, hands behind his back, looking down and mildly interested in the grooves of the floor meeting the toe of his pilgrim shoe. “I will be okay. I think.”

“You know, you’re awfully brave for a kid.” I placed the pine cone in the middle of my jacket and wrapped it as neatly and as tightly as I could, which wasn’t very. “Do I have to tell you when the jacket’s around the pine cone or does it-?”

A wash of dizziness came over me and suddenly the jacket blinked in and out of my vision a few times, registering as heavy and soapy in my hands once, and coming back to me fresh, clean, and dry. I stared at it in wonder.

“Oh, wait a second.” Loki said. “You should probably put it down on the floor after you wrap it up over the pine cone. ...Are you okay?”

“Just a little dizzy,” I said, bracing myself against the wall. My brain was spinning, ironically, like the inside of a washing machine. I stripped my grease-black shirt off next and tucked the pine cone inside, being careful to set it on the floor before anything happened. The dizziness wore away with fascination at seeing my shirt go from dingy and congealed with monster grossness to sopping wet and frothy with bubbles to completely dry and clean. Quickly, I shook the pine cone out of the shirt and stared at it in amazement. “What else can this thing do?”

Loki laughed. “That’s for me to know, and for you to find out.”

Okay, well, I didn’t quite like the sound of that, but whatever. Clean clothes were indeed a godsend at this time of day and in this particular instance. I heard the sink turn on and the soap pump squeaking as I threw my jacket and shirt over the top of the stall door and stripped down the rest of the way to soak myself in some hot water before getting dressed again. There wasn’t any soap in the shower stall with me, but I figured that if the water was hot enough, that would account for something. As long as I didn’t fall asleep from the warmth.

With a few more wraps of the pine cone and a “hey, Loki, could you…?”, I had my favorite Hawaiian-patterned towel to dry off with and a decent set of clothing to step into. Since my graze-and-grit wounds had just about healed over, I picked the sopping bandages from my side and let them fall into the bagged trash can with a wet thunk before letting my hair down from the knot I’d put it in and tucking the towel around it in an orange-pink-yellow tye-dyed sort of turban. Fully dressed, I stepped out of the stall to find Loki drying off my baseball bat with a handful of dreadfully thin brown paper towels.

“Still good,” He said, giving the bat a twirl with his wrist like he’d see me do so many times. I smiled and put a hand on his shoulder, catching him for a hug when he turned towards me.

“Just me being a silly human, I guess,” I said, “But I would die for you.”

“Please don’t.” He whispered.

“Okay,” I replied. “Let me put it another way—I love you.”

I could practically hear his smile singing on his face.

When we left the bathroom, the lights switched back off automatically, and I noticed three things. One, the woods were a lot more alive with sound, which was a relief. Two, the cloud cover seemed to have vanished incredibly quickly, and the stars were out in full force. There seemed to be thousands of them, all twinkling up there in the great heavens. Loki looked at them, overjoyed, as if he were seeing his own front door. I assumed that was exactly what he was seeing.

The third thing made my blood run a little colder than usual, right before I got angry again. The mummy’s body was gone, though she had left a motor-oil smeared trail leading to the woods on the right. I let out an impulsive yell.

“DON’T YOU KNOW HOW TO STAY DEAD?”

A beat passed. A bird flittered by, cheeping as it sailed past us.

“I don’t think she came back to life,” Loki said quietly. “I think something else… well… had dinner.”

“Oh, that’s it, I’m so sick of this…” Cursing in front of a child, as Theodora explained to me by means of a wooden spoon some years ago, was a criminal offense in her book. I was willing to let it slide in a few circumstances, particularly ones in which there are bloodthirsty and hungry monsters surrounding you in unfamiliar northern territory. Bonus points if you haven’t been presumed missing by both North American federal governments. Plus, it made Loki laugh, and if there was anything I needed to hear desperately right now, it was his laugh. “What were you, raised in a BARN? ‘Oh, no, one of our kind just died, you know the hierarchy, leader gets the fresh meat…’ ...what the hell. Humans are far from civilized, but at least we don’t say, ‘hey, Barry, Thelonius got hit by a landmine on the field today… yeah, no, we were totally gonna have a Texan-style barbecue tonight but we thought you’d want first dibs… good? Okay!’. Who does that? Not humans, and that’s what makes us good for something at the very least.”

Loki was in a fit of giggles at this as we walked quickly back to the cars. “Don’t say that in front of Mitch.”

“Oh, Mitch is the least of my worries. We’ve got things out here that will EAT our BODIES like we are in some kind of GREEK HERO MYTH.” I pointedly looked to the forest at our right side, but nothing responded to my glare except for another bird swooping past. “Next thing you know these birds will be trying to peck our eyeballs out to serve the demon lord Cthulhu at his next Sunday brunch.”

At this, Loki cajoled me and rapped his fist on a large tree at the end of the trail leading back to the parking lot. Standing at the edge of the forest like that, he looked for all the world like a little elf-person, hair darker than night and eyes like jewels set in his head. The snow glittering around us in the starlight just added to the image, and I suddenly understood why magical creatures came out at night. It was beautiful. Dangerous, but beautiful.

“Superstitious, huh?” I asked, and he gave me an incredulous look like I had forgotten all about just killing a monster. Before I could claim sarcasm, he commanded,

“Knock on wood, and don’t jinx yourself too harshly.”

“Okay.” I gave the tree a pleasant little knock and we made our way through the starlit night to the truck where Mitch was still sleeping, undisturbed by the distant screams and hollers of an eldritch horror and two people trying not to get killed by it.

“How does he sleep so easily?” I wondered aloud, and Loki hopped up into the passenger seat with me once we’d gotten the door open. I was chilled to the bone despite the momentary fear and anger that had mobilized me, and was glad to get back into the warm, caramel-apple-smelling truck. It was as close to a home as one could have, all the warmth and softness and autumn candle smells included—except maybe for Sixty, who was equally comfortable and warm, but still had a lingering French-fry smell from one time I’d picked up some food for Theodora on one of her late shifts at the store. God, I missed her. As well as I liked being a mom and a friend and a newfound protecting force, I really, really missed being able to walk into her shop, sit down, and have someone protect me. Even if it really was just her saving me from the monotony of everyday life. I felt like I needed her more now than ever. She was a guiding hand in a lot of my decisions, and while the aforementioned eldritch horrors of the night were now more likely to be making said decisions, I missed feeling like there was someone there to shield me and offer me warm cookies and milk.

I bet she’d think it was pretty cool that I’d killed a monster, though.

Once we got the door closed without waking Mitch up (which wasn’t all that hard to do, apparently the man could sleep through anything), Loki and I sat, curled up together in the front seat, for a little while. I felt like I’d really done something; although I wasn’t sure what. Part of my soul was dark with having taken life from another being. But since that being itself was dark, was I really to blame? Some tiny part of me felt as if it was shining, like dusted-and-polished gold, and I couldn’t understand it, but something told me I would. It was almost a little voice whispering to me, but I couldn’t hear it that well; and on the off chance that it was some kind of annoying demon fly or mosquito I waved near my ear to ward it off. Loki yawned and turned over in my lap, hunkering down to fall asleep once more on my chest.

“Everybody in this car sleeps better than I do. Why is that?” I asked aloud, albeit near silently. Loki smiled as he was on the verge of sleep.

“‘Cause you’re a good protector,” he mumbled, and with that, was off to the land of dreams once more. I tightened my grip on the baseball bat faithfully tucked at my side, and pressed my chin into his raven-black curls.

“Dang right. Everybody sleeps on my watch.”

He answered with a delicate snore, which I couldn’t help but envy. Not to worry, though. My own lack of adrenaline would lull me back into a careless sleep soon enough. Protector, indeed—even they need sleep.

Oh, I fell asleep, alright—only for me to be startled awake at the sound of the truck’s engine revving up. It had barely been an hour and Mitch was already fixing to get back on the road. I blearily looked around the cab and noticed that Loki was still in my lap, holding tightly to my jacket, very much asleep. I yawned and rubbed my eyes to get a better view of where we were going.

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Mitch said with that little half-smile of his. Accustomed to seeing the missing canine, I smiled back all the way, even though I was so tired that I kept closing my eyes and forgetting to open them back up again.

“Morning, Mitch. How far ‘re we going today?”

“As far as we can go before the roads start getting too narrow. Then I figure we’ll just have to be a caravan.” Awkwardly, he reached around his seatbelt, trying to get a sweater on so he could slip his black leather jacket back over it. I noticed with a light shiver that it had gotten much colder in the cabin since our exploits earlier in the morning.

“Got colder, didn’t it?”

“Yeah. Summertime ain’t for everybody up here.” He said cheekily, putting the truck into gear. “But I s’pose that’s just alright. You bring a heavier jacket than that?”

“Somewhere around here,” I murmured, with my eyes still closed, though I was picturing Mitch speaking perfectly in my mind’s eye. I could have fallen back asleep, too, were it not for a certain somebody popping his favorite 90’s country music mixtape into the CD player on the dash and singing along to it unabashedly. I groaned and wriggled upright in my seat, rubbing my eyes ferociously. “I’m up, I’m up. I’m up.”

“And I’m singin’. Finally got some good enough sleep.” Mitch continued on with his best imitation of what I presumed to be Garth Brooks, guiding the truck out of the lot with one hand and roughly combing through his sleep-tousled hair with the other. “It’s amazing what sleep does for the mood, you know.”

“Dude. Five hours.”

“I’m sayin’,” He continued animatedly. “Haven’t slept that well in forever.”

I just looked at him. He glanced at me for a second, grinned and batted his eyelashes, and turned back to the road with more Garth Brooks to spill from his spirited lips. I sighed and rummaged through my bag for a marker to scribble on the map; detailing where we’d already been; still cradling a sleeping Loki in my lap—but not for long.

Loki stirred lightly, yawned like a cat, and stretched like one too. This would have been awfully cute—seeing his emerald eyes flicker open and refocus on the world with a renewed delight; hoping to see his parents later today—but as lavish princes of a childly nature often do (or, at least, I would assume), he stretched way too far and very nearly displaced a few necessary internal organs of mine.

“Ow,” I said aloud. “That’s my kidney, dork!”

Loki stuck out his tongue but quickly retracted his elbow from my torso, instead opting to clamber up and over me to the back seat where he could expand comfortably without complaints. In doing so I very nearly lost a shoulder, but hey, it was worth it to see him stumble over a few bedsheets and very nearly conk his head on Mitch’s bag.

“Watch your head,” Mitch warned, and I suppressed a snicker at the embarrassed flush that fell over Loki’s face. He hotly wrangled the blankets into what one could only describe as a giant, lavender, down-filled kid-throne and sat upon it with legs crossed and hands knit together as if he were at prayers.

“So,” he said.

“So,” I repeated.

“So.” Mitch conceded after a few seconds when we both looked at him.

“Good morning, first of all.” I started, examining the map as I spoke and traced where we’d been previously with the blue nib of one of my best Sharpie markers, which had previously seen little use. About halfway through drawing a thick line, I thought ‘hey, I sure hope this isn’t marking up Mitch’s dashboard…’ and hurried to put my hand behind the page to finish it. “We’ve got about fifteen hours until we hit the northernmost point of Nunavut—excluding the island bit, of course, because I don’t have enough money for a ferry or a skiff. Which means it’s about five hours until we hit the province, and if your mother really, desperately, truly wants you home, I trust we’ll be able to safely deliver you from around the middle of Nunavut.” I looked at Loki. “You have any idea how that’s gonna work? Is she going to use that weird bridge thing?”

“The Bifrost,” Loki corrected. “And I would imagine so, but I don’t know that she’s limited to that form of travel. The further north we go the better, but I can already feel the Norse winds calling me home. We’re very close.” He appeared to listen for a second, though all I could hear was the Ford’s wheels squealing and thrumming and crunching over the snow that had solidified somewhat on the roadway.

After a few moments, he looked at me with that uniquely piercing stare of his—almost as if he were looking into my very mind—and said, “You will know.”

“Very ominous of you,” I noted. “Thanks.”

“It’s what the winds tell me,” he said, looking out the window and nodding his own non-sarcastic thanks to some being that I couldn’t see. Hopefully, I asked,

“Does this mean no more freak monster incidents, the closer we get to home?”

His childish face darkened, and I wished I hadn’t spoken, but he lightened back up almost immediately. “No, silly. Remember? They’re attracted to magic. There’ll be more of them the closer we get.” He leaned in imperceptibly to the window and nodded again thoughtfully. “Though we’ll be protected and guided, if that’s any consolation.”

“I guess so.” I mused, turning back to the map and trying to find where we might have our last gasoline, meal, and restroom break before going the 5-to-15 hours up to Nunavut.

Mitch glanced over. “You looking for a stop?”

“How’d you know?” I asked jokingly, but he shrugged. “Thought you might be, ‘cause your stomach was growling a little while back. There’s one about three hours from here if you think you can make it that far.”

I looked down at my abdomen as if it were an entity that had betrayed me somehow. In answer, my stomach growled loudly, announcing to the whole cab that yes, I was hungry. “Yeah, I can wait. Besides, I’ve got snacks in my bag.”

“Who wants to hear some facts from the encyclopedia?” Loki asked with a cherubic glow about him, swiping his hand and summoning the book out of thin air.

“I do!” Mitch replied. “Hit me.”

“Exaggeration.” I warned Loki, who told me that he knew that already, despite looking (only for a second) genuinely confused.

“Seventeen bottles of beer on the wall, seventeen bottles of beer…” Mitch and Loki chanted together, thoroughly immersed in making me lose my mind as I tried to guide our goofy-looking faux limousine through a particularly narrow roadway to get to the gas station up ahead. I’d asked them to quit several times, but not even my righteous nagging would shut them up, they were in too good of a mood to bother with even the vague notion of being silent and bored so my ears could rest. I tried to reconcile this with the fact that it was our last day together, and so I should be enjoying it to the fullest. But damn it, I was NOT going to sing “Ninety Nine Bottles of Beer On The Wall”. Anything else would have been better.

“And now zero bottles of beer on the wall!” Mitch and Loki collapsed into a fit of laughter at the overexaggerated last syllable that had me wincing and adding “ear plugs” to any future car trip list I might make. Tricksters, pranksters, absolute dorks, the both of them. Were it not for my headache I might have laughed too. But I had to say, it was nice to see them bonding. I wondered if Loki would remember us when he grew up.

That thought hit my heart with a pang like a knife clattering on a pie tin. It was hard to think about giving him up now, especially when I’d grown so close to him. Especially when all I’d been missing throughout my life was finally found all in one person. Someone to love, a child to cherish (that wasn’t my own, but certainly acted like it). Someone to remind me of my place in the world—insignificant, in the grand scheme of things—but to make me simultaneously proud of the role I did hold as a mother.

Did this make me a mother? I caught a glimpse of Loki showing Mitch how he could cradle fire in the palms of his hands and make it dance across his fingertips. Hm. Well, considering the minute instances of parenting which I had to partake in, I’d say yes, that made me at the very least a Half Mom. Maybe not mother yet. Too steep; too bold; too mature of a term. I’d be a mom, though. This experience definitely had “mom” material written all over it, with a dash of apocalyptic humor and absolute randomosity. Maybe he would remember after all. I took one hand off the wheel for a precious second to touch the outline of the pinecone in my jacket pocket. If anything was for sure, I would remember, and I supposed that would have to be enough for me. I’d always see Kid Loki dancing through my dreams. Maybe it’s enough to live for the memory of someone. Maybe indeed.

I was pulled from my dramatic self-questioning by Mitch saying, “hey, (Y/N), look what this kid can do!”

Beginning to seriously wonder if it was Mitch’s goal to keep my attention away from the road long enough to have us drive into a ditch, I glanced at Loki for a split second, during which he—

He actually disappeared.

“Holy crap!” I exclaimed. “You can do that?”

He reappeared just as quickly, beaming like a little ray of pale winter sunshine. “I can! I taught myself how to.”

“When?” I wondered aloud incredulously.

He shrugged. “Well, as much as you two were laughing last night, I couldn’t really sleep, so I practiced my seidr for a bit. And I taught myself how to blend in.”

“You really do have some wickedly cool powers.” I said, quietly wondering how much of mine and Mitch’s conversation he’d overheard without us knowing.

“Gifts, actually.” He corrected me again. “But thank you.”

“Yeah, you’ll have to show me how to do that sometime,” I quipped with a smile, glancing at him to throw a playful wink his way. He just laughed and laughed like the little kid he was and fell back into Mitch’s lap, who was comfortably reclined in the passenger seat, having let me take over driving for a while. He, too, was laughing, though silently, with his chest shaking a little under his jacket and his good-natured close-lipped smile guarding against any giggles that might accidentally slip past.

“Okay, you lot.” I said, mimicking a false British accent for a second as the Ford toiled up the drive to the gas station which was awkwardly placed on a hill. “In and out job, here. We fill up the tanks. We unhitch the buggy. We slap on our winter wear.” Halfway through the instructions, I gave up on the British accent because somewhere in the fourth sentence it had morphed into a more Scottish one and anyways I wasn’t keen on speaking with a lilt quite like Mitch was. Loki laughed when I returned to my plain American garble. “Alright, alright. Winter wear. Get dressed, freshen up, pray that the bathrooms are as clean as this place looks pretty with the snowfall, eat a good breakfast-and-or-brunch and have a walk around to stretch out our legs.” I reached down to massage my knee, which I realized was abnormally sore, even more so than my left knee. I wondered if perhaps Mitch’s problems weren’t just related to that horse-riding accident. “Sound good?”

“Fine by me,” Mitch nodded his head in a deep bow, like he tended to do. Loki did the same and looked up with a playful grin. He held up his hands and let them burst into tame little green flames. “Can I cook?”

“Don’t burn anything down, but otherwise, be my guest,” I said, grabbing my bag and heading for the building. Unlike the many other gas stations we’d stopped at on this trip, this one had an oddly serene nature about it. I checked with the premonition lying in wait in my stomach before I walked through the door.

“If there’s anything to warn me about, do it now,” I said under my breath.

A beat passed. Then my stomach gargled intrepidly and I felt a hunger pain twirl up my side. I sighed. “Yeah, yeah, I’m getting to it.”

Assured, I stepped into the small building and was surprised at how well-kept it was inside. A joint like this out in the middle of nowhere, I would have figured it to be in some severe state of disrepair, not at all glowing under the fluorescent lighting like it did. I took a look around and noticed several things that looked rather antique for such a modern world, and began to wonder with a twang of fear if this was another one of those lotus-trap things. I looked up and around for an employee or manager or even just somebody else in the building at all, and was more than a little perturbed to see no one.

“Hello?” I called out.

Nothing.

Well, it wasn’t a paralyzing silence, at least. I wished I’d brought the bat with me, but assuming they had security footage, I didn’t want to be taken for some kind of criminal. I clutched my bag a little tighter and called out again. “Hello?”

Somewhere, a door popped open, and little step-step-steps came scurrying out to the main store floor. Still, I couldn’t see anybody. I resolved to just stand by the rack with all the Little Debbie snacks on it. Strangely, the packaging looked vintage, as if those very cakes hadn’t left the seventies. I suppressed a shudder, but the premonition still laid, sated, in my gut.  
“Hello, hello!” A thickly accented voice came through to me, finally. “What can I be doing for you?”

I leaned into the aisle, and then leaned the opposite direction, searching for who the voice belonged to. “Uh… where are you?”

“Hello! Here!” I jumped at a sudden hand on my shoulder, though the touch was light and harmless. Behind me, there was a short woman, perhaps only five feet tall, looking up at me with the most beautiful smile I had ever seen. Only I couldn’t really focus on her much—there was something about her aura that made her seem a little... blurry. And I was almost certain she had too many teeth in her mouth.

She did not mind personal space at all, though, and grabbed my face kindly, turning me this way and that like a blind grandmother trying to identify one of her children. “Oh, I see, I see. Been a long time, hasn’t it. Yes. You are Frigga’s maiden.”

“I’m who now?” I asked, but she tittered out a laugh and ignored me, snapping her hand in the direction of the building. Suddenly, everything was rearranged, and looked curiously like one of my local grocery stores. The imagery made me long for home, but I was delighted to see a full rack of my favorite snack foods on display in front of me where the vintage Little Debbies had been moments before. It didn’t even occur to me to be amazed until she whisked out a golden crown—well, not so much a crown; it didn’t have much detail at all; a golden band, more like—and placed it delicately on her head. Her aura softened at the edges and she appeared crisper to me, like a white snow hare alighted on a dark green pine bough. She reminded me of that very animal—her skin was pale and wrinkle-free, though her hair was as white as bleached lace, and the band of gold stood out upon it like a halo. Her eyes were a pale lavender and I was right, she did have too many teeth; there they were, tiny and square and neatly packed into her jaw like a hundred little pearls. Her dress was what I imagine a fashion designer might call “casual 1800s ball gown”, a pale blue with strings of silver and bits of sapphire beading here and there, and the little step-step-step-ing sound I’d heard came from her peculiarly-shaped golden shoes.

“My name is Fulla, love.” She patted my cheek. “What do you need? I know what you need, yes, yes, I know, but I love you to tell me. Please do.”

“Uh,” I said. “We—well, we have our own food, but, uhm, we’re looking for a place to wash up and… and we do need quite a bit of gasoline for both cars.”

She looked at me, gave me a once-over glance and nodded. “This for you I will do. Frigga does insist. Two cars, tanks full full of gasoline for the voyage.” She winked at me, laughed, and then blinked out of my sight, suddenly behind me and shooing me to a previously-unnoticed corner of the store where a restroom was marked. To appease her, I stepped in quickly and got ready for the day, which already felt like it was half over.

Once I was done scrubbing my hands and teeth and brushing out my now-dryish hair, I finished dressing and slipped my winter parka over my outfit, which was delightfully warm against my person. I hadn’t realized how cold I’d been until now, and wondered if maybe that wasn’t Loki’s or maybe Fulla’s doing. And if it was—well, wasn’t that kind of dangerous? I mean, if you can’t feel cold and you get hypothermia or frostbite—

For the next few minutes, I checked for any signs of reddened or bluish skin and held my own wrist against my forehead to try to tell my temperature. Theodora used to take my temperature that way, and I’ll be damned if she wasn’t right every single time, but the trick never seemed to work if I tried it on myself, which was a real shame. After a good fifteen minutes of scrutinizing myself in the mirror and wondering when I’d get a good look at myself again, I sighed and made my way back to the front of the building. It was still in the layout of a grocery store familiar to me—the name was on the tip of my tongue, but I just couldn’t tell you, even if I tried—and Fulla was nowhere to be seen. Outside, Mitch and Loki were cooking up a storm on the camping stove, although the meal easily could have been rendered a science experiment with one or two tweaks.

“What in God’s name did you do to that poor can?” I asked, looking at the vague container made of what appeared to be shrapnel from a civil battlefield in the 1800s. Loki just giggled.

“I found out how to use the can opener!”

“You most certainly did not.” I said, leaning against the car and rubbing my hands together for a little warmth. “So, what’ve you yokels put on the menu today, other than beans with a side of flak?”

Mitch laughed. “Still got a bunch of fruit, haven’t we?”

“Probably. I’ll grab some.” With a quick exchange of keys, I was digging in the Impala’s kitchen for something decently edible, and I settled on some canned fruit cocktail when the half-empty bread bag caught my eye. The trunk lid clattered shut indignantly as I made my way back over to the bunch, watching Loki tend to the baked beans as if they were a little potion in a cauldron. He turned toward me and his eyes lit up like little green fireworks as he saw the can in my grasp.

“I’m opening this one,” I said, and his expression fell like a stone. Mitch chuckled.

“It’s okay, bud, you’ll get another chance.”

“Says you.” I stuck my tongue out at Mitch and suddenly realized that I was no longer in possession of my precious canned fruit. “Hey!”

Loki giggled as he swung the can opener at the poor cylinder like a woodsman’s ax, faking it out at just the last second. I snatched the can back and nearly dropped the bread in the process. “Don’t give me a heart attack, kid, I’m not afraid to haunt you in the afterlife.”

“Okay, Mom.” He made a face as he said it and went back to tending the beans, even though I could see a good-natured smile pulling at the corners of his lips.

“Who wants to try making bread pudding?” I asked.

Two hands crept into the air with caution.

“Yeah, this sucks,” I muttered into my steaming mug of what a disgruntled line cook might call “Sunday-morning shit”. It really should have been taken for granted that substituting sugar for fruit cocktail syrup and milk for water would make it significantly less enjoyable. Paired with the fact that I actually had made bread pudding only once, this was, to put it mildly, a huge embarrassment to an aspiring chef.

Wait, since when did I aspire to become anything?

My train of thought was derailed as I came back to the present to watch Mitch and Loki try to sweeten their “bread pudding” with bits of trail mix and crushed fudge cookies. Mitch winced as he bit into a particular slice of pear that had the constitution of a rock. “This is, uh, this is… somethin’.”

“Just say it sucks.” I laughed to myself, appreciating the gentle fog that rose up from the dish in my hands. I stuck another spoonful in my mouth and sighed at how utterly bread-flavored it was.

“It sucks.” Loki, ever the honest little cherub, announced. “At least the beans are good.”

“Yeah, what is it with you and the legumes? That’s gotta be your third helping already.”

Loki just dug his heels into the snow and cozied up to the side of the car all three of us were leaning against. “I’m hungry and they’re good.”

“Point taken.” I said. “Hey, after we unhitch the buggy, you guys want to build a fort?”

Mitch, who was bundled up in about four layers plus a coat, cheered. “I’m game if you are! Haven’t built one of those things since I was a kid.”

Loki turned his whole self towards me with a look that denoted irritation. “Must you speak in code around me?”

I burst into laughter. “I just mean making a snow fort, kiddo. Playing in the snow like a bunch of fifls, as you’d say.”

“Speak for yourself,” he retorted, jumping up and pausing only to brush the snow off his shorts with some level of delicacy and slight impatience. “I’m going to build the best fort you’ve ever seen!”

And with that, he dove off into the snow like a little white rabbit.

“Stay where I can see you,” I shouted after him, and heard a muffled reply from behind a particularly large snow dune. I sighed with content and lifted yet another spoon of “bread pudding” to my lips.

“You ever have proper winters where you’re from?” Mitch asked, setting his mug of bread remains aside and turning slightly towards me, leaning against the wheel of the Ford.

“Nah. We mostly had brown Christmases. Sometimes muddy ones.” I finished up my fruit cocktail pseudo-meal and sat my mug in the snow right next to Mitch’s. It leaned to the side a little bit and rested on his, which I half-smiled at. It would be nice to lean on his shoulder again.

He interrupted my thoughts with a lovely laugh. “Oh, I hear ya. We got muddy ones, too, always cold and drizzly. I remember one time it actually did snow, and we had a pretty good layer of it in the school yard.” He scratched his jaw, mind absent from the moment with remembering, and laughed a little when the clarity of the memory came to him. “We tried to have a snowball fight, and things got a little too wild. Eventually we ran out of snow, so we just started slingin’ dirt at each other, which the teachers weren’t too happy about.”

“Gosh, you guys were just little devils,” I laughed. “I don’t think I was ever allowed to be that rowdy in my entire life. Mom would’ve killed me if I’d dragged mud into her house and onto her carpets.”

“Aw, but that’s mothers for you, they want their houses clean,” Mitch said. “Just like how clean you keep that car.”

“Uh-huh,” I said dryly, thinking of the mess we’d had in the backseat, especially on the first few days of the drive. “Tell it to the Cheerio crumbs and the blanket nest.”

That got him to giggle, but he looked at me, then, with some kind of intensity that I just couldn’t get a hold on. It was almost like he was trying to tell me something telepathically, only I had no clue what it could possibly be; and I was thinking of asking him when he looked away and down at the dishes from our zillionth impromptu luncheon.

“Whatcha thinking about?” I asked in my best nonchalant tone.

“I don’t know,” he said, and repeated it quieter. “I don’t know.”

I opened my mouth to respond but Loki beat me to the punch. “Hey, are you guys going to build your forts or what?”

I looked over and my mouth fell open at the vast, glittering snow fort that rested in front of us in the otherwise stilled beauty of the forest. Something like that should’ve taken a few hours—would’ve taken a few hours—to build, but once again, Loki had employed some type of gifted witchcraft to his aid. The little prince himself was perched on the very top wall, constructing what seemed to be a type of turret. I snapped my mouth shut and just shook my head, knowing I should’ve been used to it by now. “I don’t suppose you’re gonna help us out?”

“Maybe,” Loki said, putting the final touches on his turret and stretching out over the snow-roof like a languid little cat. He smiled and crossed his arms behind his head, wiggling into a more comfortable position. “If you two agree to be my snow-servants.”

“Aw, come on,” I said, scooping up the dishes and tossing them into a plastic bag for later washing. “Unfair.”

“T’is so fair! A favor for a favor!”

“I reject that assessment,” I poked, noticing Mitch creeping towards the magnificent fort with a half-formed snowball in hand.

Loki was still unawares, eyes closed; body lounging in the sunlight that was just starting to peek through the cottony grey skies. “You may reject it all you like; no seidr for you.”

“No, no, we’ll be your, uh, snow-servants,” Mitch said, trying not to laugh. I egged him on silently, grinning as he patted the large snowball to perfection. “I just have one thing to say.”

“And what’s that?” Loki opened one silvery green eye.

“LONG LIVE THE KING!” Mitch yelled loud enough to make the pines at the edge of the forest quiver and punted the snowball right into Loki’s surprised face.

There was a half second of silence before Mitch and I broke into reckless laughter, and Loki flew down from his rooftop to take shelter in his glorious fort. I was in the middle of offering Mitch a congratulatory high-five when I heard a wet THUP in my right ear and the right side of my face was very cold and dripping with snow.

“Oh, you little devil,” I muttered to myself, before watching as Mitch, in the middle of laughing at my dumbfounded expression, got nailed in the neck with another zinging snowball. He gave a squeak like a mouse and pawed the snow out of the collar of his jacket, hopping around and shaking out his hair. I had a good laugh at that, alright, but another two snowballs to the shoulder and the knee had me diving for cover behind the rust-brown Ford. Mitch ducked down and swung behind the truck as well, peeking over the hood to keep watch of Loki’s fort, and where the frozen-water artillery shells were coming from.

“I think he’s shooting them from that top turret,” he said to me.

“What’s our plan?”

“I’m thinkin’ either siege warfare or we charge.”

“Those are two very different things,” I said, working on packing down my third snowball.

“I know, I know. But what’s gonna get him to surrender?”

I laughed silently, shoulders shaking. It was hilarious how seriously we were all taking this. There was a delicate tap on my shoulder, and I jumped, thinking something was behind me—

—but it was simply Loki, who promptly beaned me in the face with yet another pristine snow orb.

His laughter echoed throughout the clearing as he clipped back to his fort through the frosty air, and I spat snow out of my mouth, imagining vengeful steam curling out of my ears. “I say we charge.”

“Gotcha,” Mitch said, and we hurriedly started packing in snow to make more ammunition. After a while, our snowballs turned into snow-eggs, and our snow-eggs turned into snow-undefined-geometrical-shapes. When we had enough to fill our arms to the brim, charge we did, into the clearing. Loki was waiting for us with a hovering fleet of heat-seeking snowballs to pelt us as we charged, but we made it to the fort and began to scale it as best we could with ammo in hand. Eventually we were able to swing ourselves onto the roof and sit upon it, at which point we saw Loki beneath us sitting in a square of dead grass, where he’d used up all the snow for his own artillery. He just laughed and laughed as we dumped handful after handful of snow on him, even going so far as to take armfuls of his own fort creation and very nearly bury him in the cold, fluffy substance. He looked like a little mountain with an unruly tuft of black hair and two bright eyes by the time we were finished with him, and I called down to ask, “Are you okay?”

“I feel great!” His voice rang out with childish glee. “I feel like… like… Chicago Delight!”

I laughed. “With pineapple on top?”

“With pineapple on top!” He exclaimed, and leaped out of the snow like a little reindeer, running circles around the square of dead grass. Mitch leaned toward me, though I only knew it because I felt his body warmth before he spoke.

“He look a little blue to you?”

“Huh?” I asked, but I realized what he meant right away. Loki was indeed turning blue—but not in your traditional hypothermic sense. I mean, this was blue. Like, turquoise blue. Like, made-of-ice blue. Transparent blue. Almost-alien blue. It was there for a second; and then it wasn’t, and he was just a normal (well, as normal as normal could get) kid again; ivory skin and green eyes to boot.

“You saw that, right?” Mitch asked worriedly as Loki whooped and cartwheeled along the edge of the forest.

“Yeah.” I said. “Probably one of his seidr tricks. You getting a premonition?”

“No.”

“He’s fine, then.” I turned to Mitch and smiled. “You’re not crazy yet, don’t worry.”

At this, he laughed. From behind us came the sudden sound of both the Impala and the Ford revving up at the same time, and all three of us ceased chatter, turning to see the vehicles’ headlights snap on just in time for another snow flurry to come through with the darkening cloud cover. I looked toward the windows of the shop and saw Fulla there, grinning with all eighteen hundred of her little pearly teeth, looking as if she’d like to say, “get a move on!”

“Who’s ready to head out?” I asked.

We were about an hour away from Nunavut. I couldn’t remember the last real road I saw, which was a real bummer, seeing as navigating through these trees along what some might consider little more than a goat path (or, in the case of the utter width of my car, a buffalo path) was unfavorable in the best of circumstances. When you factor in the dark, as night had fallen; the snow, which gleamed almost blindingly in the headlights and hadn’t stopped falling in slow-motion all afternoon and evening, and the fact that I had to stop and reference a cutout of a map I’d picked up somewhere along the way that was mussed up with Sharpie and pen markings all over the place, well. That was about as unfavorable as it could get.

But the heater was working.

And we had Joan Jett on the radio, low volume.

And the car still smelled a little bit like that comforting, all-too-familiar scent of fry grease and a little bit of detergent from all the bedsheets in the back.

Loki hadn’t spoken much since the gas station, mostly because he was trying to get some sleep in before reuniting with his parents. I wished I could do the same, but sadly, Sixty needed someone to pilot her, and Mitch needed someone to follow; as he was behind us in the truck. Around fifteen minutes into the hour, he stirred and woke up, stretching once more like a little cat.

“Good evening, your highness.” I said.

He yawned and rubbed his eyes, and I noticed the impressions from the folds of the blanket he was laying on had made crisscross patterns on his cheek. It gave me an odd sense of nostalgia from when I was a kid and would lie down for a nap with my own mother. She used to do that a lot back in the day; it was something I enjoyed up until the age of about 5 or 6, and boy did I miss it. It was strange, though—I’d never missed it all that much before. Huh.

“Good evening yourself.” He said, and paused to look around with his ears (well, metaphorically, anyway) perked up, like he was listening to something I couldn’t hear. “We’re close to home, yes?”

I checked the map once more. “Yup. We’re on course and should be arriving in give-or-take 40-ish minutes.”

The look of excitement that crossed his face was to be expected, but I almost thought it was a little muted. He seemed to listen more anxiously now to the wind kicking up outside. The snowflakes skittered along the sides of the car like a hundred little fingertips tracing lines every which way. The thought made me shiver, and so I turned the heat up, hoping to drown any remaining insecurities in a good dose of old-car-scented hot air.

I settled myself back into the driver’s seat. Although I’d had Sixty for a good many years, I knew (and my spine knew it, too) that nothing would ever feel as comfortable as the front seat of that 1970’s Ford. And maybe just thinking that was enough to get Sixty stuck in a deep snow rut in the middle of a thick, woodsy path, because sure enough, that’s what happened—but I didn’t have time to ponder it. The car had lurched forward into a rut deep enough to be a miniature ditch and no matter how hard I gunned it or tried to rock the car forwards and backwards, I just couldn’t get it out. Mitch’s dim headlights filled the interior of the car with a yellow glow as the Ford pulled up behind us. I sighed miserably and knew I was going to have to get out and shove.

“Hey, Loki, do you think you could give me a hand with something?”

He perked his head up slightly, listening. Whether to me or the wind, I wasn’t sure; but I realized too that the wind brushing the snowflakes against our windows had been riled up quite a bit. I spoke. “I need you to sit in the driver’s seat and steer the wheel to make sure we don’t hit any trees or anything, okay? Don’t touch the pedals, I’ll put the car in neutral and see if I can shove it out of the rut.”

“Okay,” he said, seeming to get a little energy back, curious to be behind the wheel of such an unwieldy creation.

“Alright, I’ll go see what’s what and if I need to dig the front of the car out.” With that, I stepped out into the howling night, which made every hair on my body stick straight up with cold or anxiety. I shivered and pulled the hood on my parka up, snapping the buttons into place so it wouldn’t blow right off again. I wasn’t sure what the temperature was, but I knew very well that if I stayed out here too long, I’d come back into the car looking very much like a frost giant; only way less impressive or murderous.

Mitch rolled down his window and hollered over the screaming wind, “You need any help there?”

I shook my head, and realized he probably couldn’t see that. “No, it’s fine, I’ll be out in a jiff. Just give me a second to shovel.”

After grabbing the mini shovel from my trunk’s winter-survival compartment (which is to say; the left side of the trunk), I made a third realization. The rut that I’d swung my car into was, in fact, less of a rut and more of a thin canyon. I wondered vaguely if there might be a rivulet of a stream beneath us, but no matter. I’d just have to take some of the snow around the fenders and pack it underneath the wheels, like a pseudo-road. I gripped the shovel and went to work.

Fifteen minutes passed and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get the car out. I had Loki try to guide the car a few times while I gave it a hard shove from behind, but even with a rocking-horse motion it wouldn’t give. I sighed and went to work on the other side of the car, hoping that maybe the snow around the other fender was the stuff causing the problem, and I wouldn’t have to be out here much longer.

As I was packing the snow into the little canyon-of-a-rut, I heard and felt a distant howl cut clear across the wind and send a rip-roaring chill up my spine. Stupidly, I stopped shoveling and turned around to look at where it might have come from, but Loki knocked on the car window, almost scaring me crapless.

“Don’t do that,” I said when he finally got the window down to talk to me, but he looked worried.

“Hurry up,” he said.

“You heard it too?”

“Just hurry up!” He jammed his pointer finger in the direction of my shovel and I obeyed, packing snow in even tighter. Another five minutes passed before I heard the truck door slam and lopsided footsteps approaching.

“Hey,” Mitch said. “You about done?”

I observed my creation with a wary eye and smoothed a few inches of snow in front of the car down so that it’d be more like ascending a little snow ramp than plowing straight through. “Yeah, I think this is good.”

“Alright. I’ll help you push.”

The wind kicked up around us in a sudden, snow-blasting movement, and the same howl cut across the woods again, from the same direction—and yet… a little closer.

“Help accepted,” I said, trying to keep the nervous twinge out of my voice. “Let’s go.”

With that, we each took a position behind the left and right rear fenders and began to push and shove with every muscle in our bodies. I was bone tired, and my muscles squealed at the exertion, but another resounding howl put the fear of Something (not quite God) into me and I pushed even harder. I could hear Mitch muttering to himself under his breath, and thought for a moment that I was glad to have someone as crazy as myself along for the ride. Really, it’s nice to know that other people talk to themselves. Particularly in stressful situations involving snow, cars, and possibly another eldritch horror coming to eat our souls.

Loki did his best to keep the wheel straight ahead and we finally got the car to roll up onto the little bank we’d created. With a last shove, we got it all the way across the mini canyon and cheered when it reached the other side.

Loki put a thumbs up where we could see it, and I laughed and turned to Mitch, who was gripping his left hand like it was on fire. I was about to rush to his side and ask what was wrong when I caught a whiff of something on the howling wind that made me gag a little. It was coppery and rotten, almost a skunky roadkill smell, and I wondered what could possibly smell that bad in the middle of a forest this cold. The sudden deadweight of the premonition in my stomach gave me the answer, and even though I didn’t want to, I turned toward the way we’d just come from and spotted a Great Big Something lurking in the trees just beyond our view.

“Is that… a wendigo?” I wondered aloud, almost in amazement.

“I don’t know what a wendigo is, but that there’s a critter from hell,” answered Mitch, who had also locked eyes with the thing.

All of a sudden, all three of us burst into action. I dove for the car to get my trusty slugger bat, Mitch made a mad dash to the truck for his rifle, and the wendigo let out a shriek that would have made nails on a chalkboard sound like a sleeping baby’s lullaby. It almost felt like it was laughing at us, or something. When I turned back with bat in hand to get a better look at it, I felt like I was looking at the very manifestation of death; a huge dragon-like creature with deep, bloody, gouged-out pits for eyes, and a skin stretched so tightly over its cracking bones that I could count every rib it had. Its skin, too, was like a disgusting marred patchwork quilt; all sorts of discolorations and lacerations and veins covering it to make some sort of sadistic art-show piece. I wished it were just some artwork in a museum. I wished that with all of my heart. But it was here, in front of us, screaming like the devil himself and stretching out its bat-like wings and getting ready to pounce.

I heard a different noise, a sort of fwoosh, and turned to see the driver’s side door of the Impala hanging open. Loki was advancing towards the creature, and though there was a terrified look on his face, his entire being was alight with sparking green fire like he was a flammable copper deposit and somebody had just dropped a lit match. I stared in awe at this tiny child, and had a momentary conundrum. What would I do? What could I do? Suddenly, my bat felt very useless against this creature when we had freakin’ FIRE.

Something, somewhere, must have known this. And I only say that now because it couldn’t have been me—but all of a sudden, without direction or incantation, my baseball bat levitated within my grasp and with a blinding blast, the wood fell away from a seamless metal core; a fiery sword. And when I say a fiery sword, I mean a sword that is on fire.

All I could think was: Finally!

Without a further notion, I charged, screaming and cursing at the wendigo all the way.

It did not like the sound of this. I didn’t blame it, exactly—I was pretty hoarse from all the shrieking I’d done as of recent, and my vocal cords weren’t in the best shape; so I’d like to say I perfectly understood when it opened its black maw of a mouth and hissed at me through needle-like teeth. Instead I slashed it across the muzzle, leaving a streak of fire burning on its nose, because generally I don’t like being hissed at.

It roared in surprise and batted a huge clawed… paw? Hand? I wasn’t really sure, the thing had appendages like a bat—at its face, trying to get the burning embers of my sword off. Licks of green fire tore past me and flew into the wendigo’s eye sockets, causing it to let out a wailing shriek as the fire couldn’t be doused. Its skull started to melt from the inside out, and though it must have been in horrible, horrible pain, it was also a terrible, terrible being, so it swiped out blindly for us in a last-ditch attempt at murder. I tried to swing at the paw-hand I saw coming in my direction but it bowled me over before I could. Thankfully, the snow cushioned my fall, and I was able to scramble back up to my feet before I saw the thing, half-melted, advancing towards Loki with what eyesight it had left. He was mumbling something, it looked like; his mouth was moving and I couldn’t recognize any words, but what I did recognize was that this thing was getting pelted with magical fire and yet was still intent on capturing a prince for dinner.

I took a deep breath and immediately wished I hadn’t, as the smell of burning flesh had filled the world’s cold air. Holding that deep breath, I dashed in from the side, slid under the wendigo’s outstretched arm, and stabbed blindly upward, hoping whatever vitals this thing had; I’d hit ‘em.

Well, it certainly helped to set the thing alight, but it wasn’t dead yet. How did I know this?

The wendigo looked down at me, on my back, below the flaming stab wound in its stomach, and almost seemed to have an expression that said Really? before it snapped a paw down and began to crush me to death. I slashed and tore wildly at its paw-hand to try to ease the strain on my own chest, but like a ball python in a Louisiana drainpipe, it just kept constricting; making it harder and harder for me to breathe. Though its body was alive with flames, it merely seemed tired out, not near death, and now the flames were beginning to lick at me as well.

That is not how I wanted to die.

But I definitely thought for a moment there, that it was going to be. I had to make peace with myself within the next two minutes because if I didn’t, I was going to have some problems for the rest of eternity. Trouble was, the only thing I could think about was that I couldn’t believe I’d done all this just to get killed by a stupid wendigo. A wendigo! Really? Not the lotus-monster, which had such a wicked motive for luring people in and killing them like a spider with its flies? A wendigo! And it hadn’t even bothered to disguise itself! For what I perceived as the last few moments of my oddly-harrowing existence, I was disgusted with the wendigo, and resorted to calling it all sorts of names.

Real mature, don’t you think?

I closed my eyes and that’s when I heard it.

CRACK!

CRACK!

I’d recognize that rifle anywhere.

B-B-BOOM!

That sound, however, I would not recognize anywhere.

The weight of the creature’s paw flew off of my chest and suddenly I could breathe; and I was sucking in sweet, sweet air and coughing up a lung, regaining my senses before I could turn around and see what that last noise was. Mitch’s rifle rang out two more times and the same BOOM sound followed it. I reached out for my baseball-sword, which lay, steaming, in the snow perhaps two feet from me; having been extinguished by the frozen water. Upon turning around, I saw the wendigo keeled over by the treeline from whence it had come, its heaping corpse lit up and boiling with emerald fire.

Loki was, at last, in his normal state; standing in the snow a few feet from Mitch, who was still aiming his gun at the wendigo. Its barrel gleamed with what I could only assume were remnants of Loki’s seidr, as he called it, and I was about to ask what happened when we heard a sudden fwoosh from the corpse that was being burned.

All three of us watched as the wendigo’s remains caved in and fell as dust to the forest floor, quelling all the flame with it. For a moment, the night was silent, and we were left to look over each other, seeing if the others were at all hurt. But shortly after that moment passed, we heard a beating of wings in the distance, and far more howls to match it.

Mitch spat and swore at the ground, shaking out his left hand. Loki blanched at the sound of him cussing. We three exchanged glances, and Mitch simply said,

“Run. I’ll fend ‘em off.”

“Mitch—” I began, but I really had no clue what I was planning to say. I didn’t want him to be left behind. No way did I want that. Whatever was coming was coming fast and it was going to be angry that we’d already killed one of its compatriots. I doubted Mitch had enough bullets for a whole flock of wendigos.

A wind-tearing screech came from just above the Ford and without a second thought, Mitch turned and cracked another shot at it. A single green pinpoint lit up the night for a moment and the creature in the sky—yep, another wendigo—looked shocked as it, too, burst into flame and fell to the ground.

“Get out of here!” Mitch yelled this time, and I needed no more instruction. I grabbed Loki and ran as fast as my legs would carry me back to the Impala, who was still idling. I leapt into the front seat and slammed the door closed, not even thinking to put Loki in the back; I just held onto him with one hand and drove with the other, pedal to the metal all the way. Suddenly, it was like a path had opened up for us in the forest; like something was guiding us to where we needed to go. The premonition had stopped squealing in my stomach like an angry little goblin and now leavened me with a feeling similar to—I don’t know, look, I don’t know why it felt the way it did, but it felt like I’d just eaten a golden apple, and now I was shining from inside out. And it began to pull. The premonition, the golden feeling, pulled me forward, pulled us forward, and without bashing the pedal even further into the floor of the Impala, the car bucked forwards and raced through the forest at what seemed to be a speed higher than what the speedometer could register. At one point, I saw a curve in the road coming up, and instinctively jerked the wheel so that we’d make it around the bend.

Wrong move.

The golden feeling faded away and the Impala screamed as it headed for the biggest tree trunk known to man at a speed of approximately 120 miles per hour.

I don’t know who shrieked the loudest, but out of Loki, me, and the car, I’d be willing to guess the car. Sixty smashed into the trunk with a sound like no other, metal scraping and folding along the surface, glass shattering and pink-pinking onto the hood and seats; the engine whirring and combusting and dying all within the same nanosecond—I’d just wrecked my car.

And yet we were perfectly unharmed.

Loki and I sat there, mouths open, as we witnessed the casualty of whatever the hell just happened. The dark of night melted around us and I realized that the headlights and taillights of the car had both died, leaving us in the snowy dark, with wendigos and lotus-monsters and corpse brides and a gazillion other freaks potentially around us, in the dead of the far north, with no mode of transportation, and nothing to be seen but trees and snow and trees and snow and trees… and snow.

It took me a while to get the door open, but I did, and Loki and I tumbled out of the car; still in one piece. I took some time to look him over and brush the glass out of his hair.

“Are you okay?” I asked about ten times, and he kept nodding his head, still looking at the wreckage of the hood and engine, and how the tree was unmarred.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Are you sure?”

“Mom.”

I turned to the car, then, and stared at it for a little while, still in disbelief that I’d actually managed to wreck it. Not that it was my fault, per se, I was being guided by a freaking gold feeling in my stomach and chased by wendigos and—

I began to cry. “Aw, hell…”

“Mom, it’s okay,” Loki said, but I shook my head and knelt in the snow.

“I’ve had it since… since…” I couldn’t get the words out. I didn’t need to. I just sat by my faithful Sixty’s side and cried my eyes out, trying desperately to wish her back to life. Alas, nothing happened. And although the thought struck me to ask Loki for some of his seidr to bring her back to life, or at least working order, I knew it would be a cheap shot, and too much to ask. After a good fifteen minutes or so, the cold wind blew in my face, and I came back to reality.

I still had a prince to deliver.

I stood up, motioning for Loki to join me. He looked unsure, hands folded prayer-style up close by his chest and green eyes wide with shock and fright at what he’d just seen.

“Are you okay?” He nearly whispered.

“I will be.” I responded. “Eventually. Now come on. We have to get you home.”

He nodded, slowly, and we walked through the woods together, now more aware of the golden feeling than ever.

“What is that?” I asked, tiredness in my voice. Thankfully, he knew what I was referring to without me having to say anything else.

“It’s Mother,” he said, sounding cautiously excited. “She’s calling me home.”

“Good,” I said, closing my eyes to the wind for a moment, holding on tightly to Loki’s hand as we surged forward through the deep snow. When I opened them again, we were trudging towards a little clearing, and the golden feeling was growing in my gut. We dashed towards it, Loki and I, a pair of survivors from God-only-knew-what. I didn’t know what to expect when I crossed the threshold of the clearing. Lights? Confetti? Fireworks? A rainbow bridge leading into the sky that Loki would just walk away on? I don’t know. I don’t know. But we ran to the clearing, and the golden feeling evaporated into thin air, leaving us alone in the dark with the glittering snow moving past us on the wind.

“But…” Loki looked confused for a moment. We stood there, waiting, absolutely positive that Frigga would come fetch us.

One minute.

Two minutes.

Five minutes.

After ten minutes, I couldn’t take it anymore. I threw myself to the ground and began to yell and cry and beg and scream.

“FRIGGA!”

The stillness of the world seemed to stop and listen, but I didn’t care, I just kept on screaming.

“FRIGGA, YOUR SON IS HERE!” I beat the snow with my fists and drew strained breath after strained breath into my cold-bruised lungs. “YOUR SON, FRIGGA! WE’VE COME ALL THIS WAY! DODGED EVERY MONSTER, NOT BEEN EATEN ALIVE, PULLED EVERY MAGIC TRICK IN THE BOOK, HAD EVERY SINGLE SCREWBALL WITHIN A FIVE-MILE RADIUS THROWN AT US, WE’VE BEEN THROUGH IT ALL, HE’S BEEN THROUGH IT ALL, AND IF YOU DON’T COME GET HIM RIGHT NOW, I SWEAR TO WHATEVER GODS THERE MAY BE, I’LL KEEP HIM!” I howled until my throat felt as if it had been shredded with a fork and I tasted blood, and then I kept howling. “I’LL KEEP HIM BECAUSE I’M A GOOD MOTHER! I’M A GOOD PERSON! AND I WON’T LET HIM BE EATEN BY FRIGGIN’ MONSTERS! I’LL KEEP HIM SAFE BECAUSE I LOVE HIM!”

With that, I collapsed onto the ground in another fit of tears. It was a while before I noticed that I wasn’t sobbing into snow. I was sobbing into grass, fresher than the first day of June.

All I could think before I blacked out was God, I miss grass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this one!! As always, I thrive off of feedback and if you notice anything buggerish about my writing, do tell! I love to fix things up, especially if it makes the story better. Otherwise, just know I love you lots, and I hope you have a magnificent day!  
> <3 <3 <3


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter, y'all! Hopefully it measures up :) I had a wonderful time writing this book! But, more on that in the end notes... for now, enjoy the final installment of Kid North!

CHAPTER EIGHT

★

When I awoke for the umpteenth time on this godforsaken journey, I was dead.

Well. Not really. Maybe. One would assume they were dead if they were in my place; for where I had fallen was a dark and snowy wasteland, and when I looked up…

When I looked up, it was calm and silent. The air was light with the dainty musk of a thousand daisies stretching into lazy sunshine. I rolled onto my side and propped myself up on my elbow, coughing a little and realizing all the hoarse screaming I’d done had probably just wrecked my throat for good. My head ached. My limbs felt as if I’d just been put through a woodchipper. The only thing that made me consider that I might not actually be dead was just that—the pain. Heaven, after all, was supposed to be paradise; pleasure without all the strain and agony of life. And maybe it was just me, but I had a rather hard time imagining how Hell could look like a blue sky and a field full of daisies.

After a few deep, rattling breaths, I looked around for Loki, who was no longer in my line of vision. Everywhere I turned the picture was the same: bright blue sky and an infinite stretch of daisies; their little white-and-yellow heads fluttering every which way in a nonexistent breeze. I turned around and around until I felt dizzy and sick, finally dropping back to my knees.

“Please,” I whispered, without knowing what I was asking for.

The daisies waved. And then there came a voice.

“You know, some goddesses would have you flayed for speaking like that.”

I struggled to stand once more and turned in the direction of the voice, which was deep yet feminine; in a way that encompassed every mother’s stern tone and loving undercurrent. Before me stood a nearly-familiar woman against the backdrop of torturously-calm daisies. Plain as day, I could see her: she almost looked human; and could have passed for it, if she weren’t about nine feet tall and shimmering like the surface of a glassy lake. Her golden eyebrows arched at my expression, which must have looked quite stupid. Still, I gaped.

“Is there anything you have to say for yourself?”

I tried to speak, and faltered, suddenly feeling subconscious in my parka and jeans as her rippling sky-colored cape flew out behind her in rainbowed whips. “I… Frigga?”

“Mother Frigga to you,” she instructed, and I bowed my head and sunk to my knees once more.

“Mother Frigga,” I began. “I’m so sorry for yelling. I just… well, you know, I-”

“I do know.” She interrupted, calmly as ever, and I was a little taken aback by it, but was ultimately distracted by the way her hair danced mesmerizingly in the invisible breeze that her very presence seemed to control. “I know that you are impatient.”

“I’m a lot of things,” I said, my voice and knees weakening by the second.

Her dazzling blue eyes fixed me to the grassy ground as stick-pins to a butterfly on the page. “You are impertinent, child, you are graceless and you are moody, and you are the clumsiest creature I have ever laid sight on.”

“Yes.” I agreed sullenly.

“Gullible, too,” she added. “And absolutely senseless. Why, I guided you a good two-thirds of that journey!”

I dared to look her in the eye. “Pardon my asking, your godliness, but is there a point to this?”

Her eyes suddenly drew strange and melancholic emotion from my chest. “Do you truly believe me?”

I thought about it. Impatient? Yes. Impertinent? Definitely. Graceless? ...only when dancing. Scratch that, yes, all the time. Moody? Well, who wasn’t, when they were getting chased every which way by demonic creatures of the night? And clumsy… it’s a human trait, okay? We’re all a little clumsy.

I just happen to have extra clumsiness.

“Yes, I do believe you.” I told her, and her eyes drew blue from the sky, saddened so much I could hardly bear to look at them. “But, your godliness, if I may, I am only human. I can’t be as patient or graceful or whatever as you. I just can’t.” I shrugged. “Won’t stop me from trying, but I know I can’t do it all the time. And between you and me, I think being graceless has a lot of comedic value.”

Her face lit up like a gold firework on a summer night and she beamed at me. “There, child! Look at you! Say it again!”

“What part?” I was a little confused.

“You’re only human!” She crowed.

“I’m… only human?”

“You’re only human!”

“I’m only human,” I said.

“Only human!”

“I’m only human.”

“Again!”

“I’m only human.”

“Again!”

“I’m only HUMAN!” I shouted, growing more and more confused and a little ticked off as the seconds passed. I was about to ask why in the world Mother Frigga would have me chanting some sort of textbook-therapy mantra when the scenery around me whirled like the inside of a washing machine and sent me spinning back to the ground, where I cracked my head against something solid.

“Ow-!” I cursed at whatever it was, and realized with a pause that it was a CD stand. I’d knocked my head against a CD stand in the middle of the Nunavut woods and a Blink-182 album had fallen out.

What in the good goddess Frigga’s name was going on?

That’s when it came to me. I was staring up at a ceiling that used to be mine, at a single incandescent bulb, at a room tinted yellow in a nice little cabin somewhere, a few hours before I learned to bake a damn good cake.

“Oh hell no,” I whispered, but stood up for the third time anyway. I was really starting to resent the godly folk; for more reasons than one, but having fallen down and gotten up so many times in the past five or so minutes was really pissing me off, and now I had to deal with these two idjits rolling around in my-

“HEY!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. She gasped and turned to look at me with bright green eyes fringed with chunky mascara. He didn’t even have the decency to look surprised, he just fixed his mouth into a straight line and looked exasperated, like he usually did.

“Those are my goddamn sheets!” I said, and tore the bedclothes away from them. What lay underneath was never to be seen, as within a nanosecond they stood before me, fully clothed and threatening. Well, Punk was threatening; his mistress, as it were, was still busy looking worried and probably wondering if I’d knock her lights out. I wanted to. I so wanted to. But I took a deep breath instead.

“You.” I said.

“Me?” She pointed at herself with a shaking fingertip. I breathed out through clenched teeth and resigned myself to whatever the hell Frigga was trying to get across to me.

“Yeah, you. Abigail. What you’re doing right now really sucks.” I said, trying my best to keep my voice even and calm, even though my heart was drumming in my chest and my face was still red with anger. “It sucks to be cheated on and by the look on your face you know it sucks to be the side piece. You should have just come to me. You should have told me.” I closed my eyes and breathed again, but felt suffocated by the smell that was his room. It was too familiar. I was drowning in it all over again, brought back to memories I’d spent all of forever and a day trying to rid myself of. But I did it. I breathed. I spoke again.  
“You should have told me, but I know as well as you do why you didn’t. You did something stupid and you were scared to be found out, and it was so fun and reckless that you just couldn’t help yourself.”

She looked surprised and troubled, but nodded.

“I forgive you.” I said, surprised myself at how easily the words tumbled out of my mouth. “Now get the hell out of here.”

With that, she smiled - gently, gratefully, not snidely - and vanished into thin air, like smoke escaping into the atmosphere.

And suddenly, the musk of his room became too much to bear again.

“And you,” I said, unsure of how to proceed anymore. There were so many words I wanted to say. So many cusses I could have spilled or strung out, so many things I’d wanted to scream at him and make him understand. But he did what he always did, and made me want to come crawling back.

“Aw, honey.” He smiled like a wretch would, shuffling his dark hair through his fingers and locking eyes with me. I saw nothing in his gaze but deceit. “Come here. C’mere. You know I still love you…”

“No you don’t.” I said, plainly, and his demeanor shifted slightly, if only imperceptibly.

“Yes, I do. Can’t you see that? I don’t love her.” He gestured to the empty space. “To hell with her, honey, I love you. You’re the only one who can get me all riled up like you do.” He grinned and reached out to touch my jaw but I forced his arm back to his side.

“I’m sure. Will you listen to me for a second?”

His gaze hardened, suddenly, to that terrifying look I’d only seen a few times; and yet at the very sight of it my stomach dropped like a knot of iron and my brain gave up all semblance of thought substituted only by a sharp, high pitched red-alert screaming noise. Punk grabbed me by the collar of my parka and pressed me against the back wall of the room, seething with the unbridled anger he’d always had just below the surface.

“No, you listen to me,” he said, and for the moment, I heartily agreed, as I couldn’t breathe or think a coherent thought on how to get out of this mess. I wanted so badly to duck my head and run away, out of the house, into my car, so I could drive away and be done with it. I’d never asked to come back here. I never asked for this.

“That’s a lie.” He said, glimmering with rage and a strange kind of sick glee. He laughed and I noticed his arms trembling as he held me, pinned, against the wall. “You know it’s a lie. You loved me. All you ever did was love me. God, I got so sick of hearing it. Darling this, dearest that, when are we gonna have kids…” he made a mock-puking face. “You have no i-dea how awful it was to hear all the time. The only thing good about you was the food. You were easy to fuck with, too, but the food was the best.” He laughed again, even harsher this time. “Imagine that. She sucks in bed but he keeps her around because she makes the world’s best mac and cheese. Guess the woman really does belong in the kitchen, huh?”

I didn’t even know what to say. He was tearing my heart open string by string in a way that he really hadn’t before. I felt small, and ugly, and like there was some grain of truth to what he was saying. I really hadn’t ever been anything special. I’d prided myself on being a well-rounded, average, idyllic girlfriend who could cook a good meal, keep a good job, make a bed with hospital corners and take care of my significant other without them having to do the same for me. I was independent. I was… motherly. And to hear it all spat back in my face like I was truly, definitely useless, even to him, made me shrink back into my parka and want to hide from the world even more. I closed my eyes and pictured being able to drive away from here, with the Impala’s driver’s side window rolled all the way down, catching a sweet, melancholic summer breeze to numb the pain.

“And you can’t even fucking look at me when I’m talking to you.” He snorted, and let me go. I felt my shoulders ache where he’d held me against the wall, but noticed he was rubbing his arms like they were tired. “You’re just a fucking coward, (Y/N), that’s all you are. You’re a clingy little coward. How about it. Just a clingy little coward who doesn’t know when it’s fucking over.”

I opened my eyes, and this time, it was me who locked gazes with him.

“You’re just a lonely little boy,” I said, voice shaking. Tears threatened to escape my eyes but they weren’t from sadness—I had no idea what they were for. “You’re just a lonely little boy who was afraid that nobody loved him enough.”

Punk turned a shade of white like the snow we’d been driving through for the last few days. “What?”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, and began to cry for him. “I’m sorry you’re so mean, Will, I’m sorry you think love isn’t worth it unless it’s from food or sex… I’m sorry you get so unsatisfied… I’m sorry you felt like you had to control every girl who showed you they could care...”

“And sorry you’re clingy,” He tried to roll his eyes, but a tear escaped the corner of his eye.

“Yes,” I sobbed, reaching out for him. “I’m sorry I didn’t see the problem before. I’m sorry you couldn’t tell me. I’m sorry I didn’t do anything about it.”

He began to smile again, like he’d caught me blaming myself—and then I got it.

“But I forgive me,” I said. “We both made mistakes, Will, and we both were at fault. I forgive myself. Can you?”

He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me, eyes wide and scared, like a deer in the headlights. The Impala’s dim headlights. A deer in the middle of nowhere, alone, surrounded by snow, with nowhere to go; not even to die.

“I forgive you.” I whispered.

The world fell away.

When it all returned to the blue-and-daisy filled scenery that seemed hyperrealistic and yet simple at the same time, I was filled with a sense of serenity that I think must have been the aftereffects of being in Frigga’s presence. Or, you know, having such a weight lifted off of you. I felt a little sore, actually, like someone had literally just ripped a huge, gnarly Band-Aid off of my heart.

But I felt good.

And now it was time to say goodbye.

Loki rushed forward from behind his mother. I meant to ask him if he’d been there the whole time, if he’d seen anything; but he wouldn’t let me. He leaped into my open arms and hugged me so tight I thought he might actually break a rib (either his or mine, I couldn’t tell), but this was par for the course with Loki. I hugged him back just as hard.

“I don’t want to leave,” he whispered.

“Oh, don’t say that. Your mom’s right there.” I whispered back and smoothed down his wild black curls. It would be the last time I’d get to do that. The thought made my eyes fill with tears all over again, but I blinked them away, thinking Loki wouldn’t want his last image of me to be a sobbing mess. “Hey, I’ll keep your pinecone handy. That’s got some pretty cool seidr, doesn’t it? I’ll keep your pinecone, and that little rock you gave me…”

He was crying now, and I rocked him back and forth in my arms just like the baby I’d never had. “Shush, kiddo, you’ll be just fine. You’ll be okay.”

“Will you?”

Every once in a while you hear a phrase that hits you like a bus to the back of the skull. And it’s almost never that you have a good enough response.

“I’ll be just fine, Loki, no need to worry.” I pulled back to get a good look at him, but the sight of his red, teary-eyed face made me want to cry even more. I didn’t have a tissue to offer him, so I hugged him again; let him bury his face in my shoulder. “I’ll be okay, just for you. I’ll be okay.”

“Please stay alive,” he whimpered.

“I will.” I was crying now too, though I didn’t want to admit it. Kid had a way of getting under my skin—of crawling into the empty space in my heart, of holding hope there. “Now you be good, you hear? Don’t get into too much trouble. Maybe you can come and visit sometime.”

He heaved another high-pitched sob and tightened his grip even further. I gave him a moment to gather himself, but Frigga was starting to look a little impatient—as impatient as an immortal can possibly be, anyway.

Finally, Loki quieted. He pressed his mouth close to my ear and whispered, “I love you, Mom.”

I whispered back, “I love you too, kiddo. Loki. I love you, Loki. Go make your mom proud.”

He let go of me, inch by inch, and slid away. Frigga gathered him up into her arms and he laid against her chest like a little doll, drained of tears and oh so tired. I felt a tear stray down the side of my face as he yawned and scrubbed miserably at his little emerald eyes.

“You have many gifts, (Y/N),” Frigga intoned in my direction, though I couldn’t be sure whether she was looking at me or through me. “The strongest of which is life. Learn to recognize them. Cherish them. Use them well.”

And with that, she was gone. In the blink of an eye the blue sparked away, the daisies fluttered in an imaginary wind, and I was back in the middle of a sparkling snow clearing, silent except for the wind tickling the branches of otherwise still pine trees.

I collapsed again and closed my eyes to the stars.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Not that I’m dead or anything. Far from it, actually. I’m very much alive. Learning how to live for myself again, so to speak.

I spent a lot of time in that clearing in the woods—Mitch thinks it was about five hours before he was able to track me down, and that was because the sun was starting to come up. He routinely thanks God for making it such a clear, quiet morning. He swears he heard me calling out for him, but the doctors and I agree that there’s no way that happened—I was practically frozen solid by the time he got to me with the truck, and even then I was comatose from hypothermia. (Still got all my extremities to write with, though—and that’s what I thank God for.)

It was a strangely short ride back to civilization, or so Mitch tells me, which makes both of us think that maybe Frigga was pulling some strings behind the scenes—as she is prone to do on occasion, of course. I asked Mitch how he was able to fend off all those wendigos at once. He just smiled and mimicked a shot with the Remington and I knew he was a saint of a good aim.

“Your mother would be proud,” I mumbled to him, once, when I was still in the ICU and they were still trying to figure out how I’d managed to survive being exposed to the elements for so long with only a parka and some casual clothing to protect me. The nurse kept turning my hands over in astonishment, like she wanted me to have some tissue or nerve damage or something.

“Thank you,” Mitch said quietly, and that was that.

Well, not quite.

There was my Impala, too.

“You oughta read this,” Mitch said the next day when he came in to have breakfast with me. He let me have a sip of coffee, which I was not supposed to have, and the nurse on shift got a little irritated, but ultimately let it slide when he told her he liked her dress and asked her where she got it. Not all nurses are shallow airheads with minimal alignment to the rules of their occupation, I figured, but this one definitely was.

What he held out to me was a roughly-hewn envelope tied with a string, of all things. I undid the little parcel and read it through and looked up at him. “No way.”

“Yeah, way!” He grinned that silly lopsided grin with his missing canine and he didn’t try to hide it, and by God, I fell in love.

“Can I see it?”

He strode over the freshly-waxed linoleum of the unit to raise the window shade, and when he did, I saw my baby Sixty out in the lot. She had not one scratch or dent on her to speak of, and she even had a beautiful new emerald coat of paint, courtesy of our friend Anah—who’d written the letter in scratchy English to tell me to get better soon and to “stop driving like an maniac”. Mitch had taken the liberty of finding the car and towing it back to that little town outside of Nunavut—facing certain hellish memories, might I add—just to get it all fixed for the drive back home. For me.

“I could kiss you right now,” I said without thinking.

He tossed his head back and laughed good and loud. “I was hoping you’d say something like that, but you oughta let me take you on a date first.”

I blushed. “Right, right. Right. When I get out of here, I’m driving Sixty to the nearest Olive Garden, and you and I are loading up on garlic bread.”

“Well, now, I do like a good cheese tortellini,” he mused aloud with a smile, and we spent the rest of the afternoon together, doing crosswords and dot-to-dots and reading and watching television to see what had happened while we were away and we were happy. It was all so beautiful.

Then Tee came to visit, and it became even more beautiful. Well—maybe she didn’t see it that way at first.

“Child,” She said after stomping into the room on her going-out-on-Sunday heels, quivering with rage at what I’d gotten myself into. “Chiiiiild…”

“I’m sorry,” It came out before I could stop it. “I know I should have done something or let you know but I was in really, really deep and-”

She walked across the room and grabbed hold of my hand, holding it tight. Strangely enough, and yet lovably enough, there were tears in her eyes, and she looked down at me with the expression of a mother who has done too much chasing around, making sure her kids don’t get kilt playing in the roadway or something. Her hands tightened around mine with a loving squeeze. I felt every wrinkle, every lifeline, and I wished she could have been there with me—because while she would have guided me better than I did myself, she would know. She would know all of it; how I took care of myself and Loki and managed to make a friend and stayed alive, too—she’d know all that, and maybe then Tee would be proud.

“You should have called me,” She said. I winced.

“I know, Tee. I know. Please forgive me.”

A moment passed where Mitch slipped out of the room to give us some space and Theodora started to give a low chuckle, which I thought meant she might actually knock the stuffing out of me right there in the ward. But it gradually increased in volume and became a delightful, relaxed laugh.

“I forgive you,” she laughed, “I do. But next time, child, you are bringing me along. I can’t miss that!”

“For sure,” I said, smiling and laughing with her out of relief. “You’re always welcome, Tee.”

She leaned in real close. “You’re alright?”

I nodded.

“Who’s that man? He got a hold on you?”

“Ma-? Oh, that’s Mitch.” That was all I had to say before she stood back up and started nodding herself silly, smiling like she knew something I didn’t.

“Oh, he’s that one, alright. He’s the man.” She pressed her 80-year-old hands to the sides of my face and planted a kiss on my forehead. “My baby girl’s found herself a man, hasn’t she? Good one, too!”

“Yeah, Tee, he’s real good,” I chimed, feeling more and more elated by the second. She patted my forehead again and invited Mitch back in the room to chat with us while we waited for the nurse to check my vitals and bring me some goop on a tray. Probably oatmeal, for the third day in a row. I was starting to seriously hate the stuff.

“Tee?” I asked while the nurse set up my lunch tray. Surprisingly, I was allowed to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which tasted like ambrosia of the gods to my healing tongue. I very nearly gobbled it up within the moment I had it in my hand, but I resisted, and took a careful bite. The nurse placed a glass full of chocolate milk on my tray and I thanked her through a mouthful of peanut butter.

“What is it, baby?”

I crumpled the paper straw wrapper in my still-weak fist and sucked down some chocolate milk for courage. Then, I spoke. “...are you proud of me?”

“Always,” she said.

I nodded, smiling stupidly, taking another swig of chocolate milk. Another gift. Another love. Another reason to live. I was really starting to like the way this turned out.

Eventually, I was honorably discharged from the hospital—well, the doctor said ‘honorably’, but Theodora had to snort at that because she was the only one who’d seen me trip and fall over while trying to put my jeans on. (Like I said, I’m only human, and have been cursed with the human trait of clumsiness. Muscle atrophy may also have played a part; and that’s the only thing that’ll stop Theodora from telling that story over and over to her friends. If she bothers to tell you, just know that the IV did not make that loud of a sound when I knocked into it, and I only accidentally disconnected one thing from its outlet, no matter what she says.) Tee drove me home and when I finally convinced her I would be able to stay the night in my own house by myself, she left. I was alone to put the key in the door and walk in.

Everything was still in its right place. Well, of course; it was my house. I wasn’t sure what to expect—maybe a Wendigo rummaging through my things, seeing as that’s how crazy my life had been?—but it was quiet, dim, and peaceful. You know when you’ve been on vacation for a long time, and then you come home, and you realize you forgot what home even smelled like? That’s what it was—I walked right in and took a deep breath and thanked the goddess Frigga I was able to smell my laundry detergent and furniture polish and the smoky smell from my kitchen mishaps, and even the hint of a cinnamon vanilla spice candle in the entryway that had been burned out for years. It was home.

And since it was my first night at home, it was only proper that I fixed myself a meal fit for the gods.

Macaroni and cheese. Milk. Brownies.

I’ll be honest with you, I cried a little. The taste reminded me of the first night I’d had Loki home and no matter how hard I squeezed that little pinecone in the palm of my hand, it didn’t feel like I was holding him. It didn’t feel like he was with me.

But the pinecone didn’t break, either. And it still had its curious little seidr tricks—something I realized over time. Occasionally, I’d wake up to see it had bounced off of where I had placed it the night before. One morning I found it near the box of Cheerios in the pantry. I thought about cooking up some Cheerio sludge in my cherry red saucepan, but thought better of it, knowing the nostalgia wouldn’t be worth the pain of cleaning it out again. Still, all throughout that morning, he was on my mind like honey on the comb. I missed my kiddo fiercely.

Things changed. I quit my job. My boss Stacey didn’t care much for my extended leave of absence anyway, and soon enough I got hired as a line chef at a restaurant five minutes outside of the suburbs. I liked it a lot, because unlike the hellish diner we stopped at in that town outside of Nunavut; the owner of this place was a crotchety old guy who gave you the evil eye if you screwed up any one of his best dishes. My interview had gone strangely, but surprisingly well. He had me going through task after task in the kitchen, following me around with his watch on the ‘timer’ setting. “Dice the tomatoes,” he’d order, and then time me. He gave me a look for using a paring knife on a block of cheese, but I think he let it slide because the block was small anyway and I’d already boiled noodles using a dash of salt (according to him, the “only proper way to prepare pasta”).He watched as I made his grandmother’s gingerbread from scratch and when the hour was up, he tasted some, sat there a while with his lips puckered, and told me I could start in the morning. He even gave me the rest of the gingerbread as a take-home gift (after he’d taken off a slice or two for himself).

So, I was waking up early, feeling generally right with the world, going to work, and doing what I loved. Oh—and there were the gifts.

It turned out that Frigga wasn’t being all mystical and ominous when she said life is full of gifts. When I was allowed home from Ontario General Hospital, Tee insisted on driving me all the way; and I agreed mostly because I felt bad for leaving her out of the circle on so many things. We had a lot to catch up on—and besides that, I got the feeling that Mitch wanted a little more time with the Impala, as strange as it may seem. All while I was suffering through the gazes of unwieldy young nurses and stupefied doctors treating me for the best-and-worst case of hypothermia they’d ever seen, he’d been driving Sixty to and from the hospital—yet I was never sure where that “from” might be. Eventually I got around to asking, and he said there was this center nearby that had let him stay overnight—get this; a cancer screening center. As in, cancer, what his mother died from. I was going to ask him whether that haunted him or made him feel comfortable or something and I think he misread the question in my eyes, because he answered, “Yes, I got a screening; no, they’re not worried, but yes, I did get a phone number just in case I start getting random pains.”

“Mitch, that’s great,” I said, wishing he would just look at me. Aside from that night in the truck, where he’d been unusually honest about his past, he would look away and start bouncing his good knee like he was getting ready to jump up and run away.

“You think so?” He laughed uneasily, and I slipped my hand in his and held tight.

“Did they see anything unusual?”

“Got some, uh… not-tumors in my stomach,” Mitch responded, still not looking at me. His knee did stop jiggling restlessly, though, which I was glad for.

“Not-tumors?”

“I forget what they called ‘em. Somethin’ that starts with a P. Polly somethings. Anyways, they told me not to worry.” He chanced a look at me, then, and I could see it in his eyes that he was the one doing enough worrying for the both of us. “But like I said. I have a phone number. Just in case.”

“You’re gonna be alright, Mitch.” I pulled him in for a hug and fell right back into the caramel-apple-dream fragrance from the rust brown Ford. His wheat-blond hair tickled the side of my face as I told him as many times, in many ways, that he’d be okay.  
“We’ll check every year.”

“Yup.”

“And if anything’s up, I’ll be here for you, okay? Like you were for me. Like you are for me.”

I swear to you, I could hear him smile, and that was enough to make my heart sing. “Thanks, (Y/N).”

“You’re very much welcome, Mitch.”

“(Y/N)?”

“Yeah?” I pulled away to look at him, and was put at ease seeing his full smile.

“Would you let me drive the Impala home for you?” You know, if I hadn’t known any better, I would say that he was just trying to hang on as long as he could; to have any possible need or connection with me. And even though I knew it really wasn’t necessary (we’d traded numbers and he’d given me the somewhat-precise location of his whereabouts in the states at any given time, seeing as he was prone to travel), I loved it. I loved him.

“Oh, what the heck. Why not.” I acquiesced, and laughed as he gave a little “yes!” and pumped his fist in anticipation of driving old Sixty.

So, he led the way on the interstate, and Tee and I rode together in her rickety old sedan. We got to talking, then—of course we did, what better way to pass 20-or-so hours?—when suddenly I felt that premonition again. That pull in my gut.

“Stop the car!” I hollered, mid-conversation, which might’ve made any other old lady scream and jerk the wheel and spin us out on the freeway; but Theodora hollered back instead.

“YOU DYING?”

“No, but we nee-”

“THEN THIS CAR AIN’T STOPPING.”

I pressed myself against the window, glancing around with a nervousness like a caged animal; scenes from every fight we’d faced flying through my head at breakneck speed. Was it a wendigo? A shapeshifter? God forbid, a lotus creature? I had no idea until I saw a familiar shape on the horizon that I’d only ever seen in daylight once.

“Theodora, we need to go there. You see it? The little camping outlet?”

She gave me a look that suggested I might be clinically insane, which, you know, would not be too far off. “What do we need to go there for? You need some snowshoes?”

“Please,” I said, and even though she scoffed and scuffled and made a great passive-aggressive haranguing about it, she pulled into the lot and walked me to the door of the little shop shortly before the clock struck eight. I shivered as the premonition grew stronger, and walked inside the building with the sun at my back, feeling like I had a protector.

The bell chimed, like it had so long ago in that dream.

The young man at the counter—Rick, my mind reminded me—was just finishing the last page of one of his nightshift comic books. I was so glad to see him I momentarily forgot that I could be in danger and ignored the premonition to say hi.

“How’d it go for ya?” He asked enthusiastically. “Kid still with you? We just got a shipment of orange ginger scented soap, I think he’d love it. That was just the oddest thing, the way he liked the soap.” Rick smiled sleepily and stretched. I wondered if I was cutting into his evening the same way we’d cut into his day when we came through that door the first time. And then his eyes lit up inexplicably. “Oh! And I found something else for you two—quite the uncanny resemblance, I must say; it’s really weird, but also really cool. And, you know, this kinda thing happens a lot; I’m pretty good with faces and I like combing through those—well, you know, you saw those buckets of old photos…”

I followed him to the back room, which was still pleasantly crammed with antiques of every kind, although the horror-movie lighting hadn’t changed much. There it was that he pulled two pictures, one from 1865 and the other from 1951, out of one of the bins on the floor. When he displayed them to me with a shy little “ta-da”, I could hardly believe my eyes.

In the first picture, there were two figures, both sitting in a sleigh that had little reindeer painted on its sides. The woman, sitting straight backed with a merry expression on her face, was in the middle of laughing and her form was a little blurry around the shoulders, suggesting she’d been laughing so hard she couldn’t keep still. The child beside her was looking straight into the lens with a mischievous grin I’d recognize anywhere. And in the second one, the same woman and child were pictured, but seemed not to have aged—impossible for such a long time, but there they were, clear as a bell, the woman leaning down to whisper something to the little boy who looked uncomfortable in his church-going clothes. They were the same people they always had been. They were us. Loki and I.

“That’s cool,” I said, after I’d gotten the lump of pure shock out of my throat. “How did you—how did you make these?”

Rick smiled, as if preparing to deliver the real kicker of a news story. “I didn’t. I thought they might be fake copies at first, that you two were actors of some kind, and we’d gotten pictures of you at a discount store or something. Renee picks up a surprising amount of pictures like that. But I did one of those reverse image search things…” he beckoned me back into the front room, where he pulled up a tab he’d been saving on a computer that looked, quite honestly, like a fossil. “And look. They’re in history books. Multiple.”

I looked. And indeed they were.

Ontario History, page 95, 'A woman and child enjoy a sleigh ride'.

A Place In Time, page 383, 'Church on Sunday'.

Ontario’s Public Records Year 1951, page 40, 'Mother convinces son to go to mass'.

Through Eras, page 100, 'Santa’s Sleigh Ride at the Festival'.

1951 In Review, page 67, 'Church on Sunday' again.

“Do you have somewhere I could sit down?” I asked weakly, before realizing the premonition feeling was gone. Rick stood up and moved aside and I sunk into his chair gratefully, not even knowing what to think. After a good while of waiting and idly chatting with Rick, Theodora came into the store to see if I was still alive or what. She about had a fit at how pale I looked and threatened to get on the line to the general hospital again but I convinced her I was fine, it was just that—and I had Rick show her the photographs, and she couldn’t believe it either; but she held it together better than I did.

“How much?” She asked.

“Dollar each,” Rick replied quickly, and she slapped two bucks on the counter and swiped the pictures into her purse.

“Come ‘long now, (Y/N), we’re going home.” She said, none too gently, and I said a sheepish goodbye to Rick, assuring him that I’d send his regards to Loki and maybe come back to visit some time.

“I’ll keep that scented soap around for him,” he laughed, and before I knew it, I was back in the car, rocketing endlessly toward home with two pictures in my hand that I had no idea existed before.

“Something funny is goin’ on,” Theodora kept mumbling to herself.

“Something funny is right,” I replied, and shuffled over in my seat to catch a warm ray of sun for a good nap.

A month passed.

And, you know, I’m still alive. I still enjoy things. I still go to the bank every week, I still get my groceries, I get paid to make food at the diner, and I’ve even been invited to the owner’s house for a meal once or twice (his wife adores me, and I have to say, I adore her and her cooking as well—they’re a match made in heaven, those two). I do the laundry—sometimes using the pine cone—and I’ve put the two pictures of Loki and I from 1865 and 1951 (even though they can’t possibly be us) on the mantle. I’ve taken Theodora to lunch at the diner. I’ve been on dates with Mitch—even went with him to the doctor to see if there was any hint of the cancer his mom had (there still wasn’t, but he did have quite a few polyps—that’s what they were called—and the middle-aged man he’d chosen to see just rearranged his glasses and told Mitch, “well, come again in a year or so, and we’ll see what’s what”). I stopped by my parents house to say hello in God only knows how long, and it’s the first time I’ve ever actually seen my mom cry. Strange that she should miss me, but I miss her too, and I didn’t even know it. We had dinner together and laughed and told stories and remembered the wonderful things in life; and I wouldn’t have traded that moment for anything at all. Except maybe one thing.

Anyways, it’s been good. Not perfect—not by a long shot, no sirree. It’s been good.

But I miss him.

This morning in particular was difficult. Distinct lethargy was already settled into my bones because I’d spent the night on the couch in the living room, watching old 80’s cartoons and wrapped in the old blue blanket, trying to summon him back to me; trying to feel like he was there. It was really like I’d lost a child—but I hesitated to even compare it to that in my head. I kept telling myself to quit being so dramatic; because there were real mothers out there who had really lost their real children, and by no means did I belong to that sorrowful club when all I’d done was babysit a kid for five insanely weird and dangerous days. All the same, I kept returning to the things we’d shared together, hoping I would be able to feel him there; hoping to recreate his dramatic and sarcastic aura, hoping to assemble him from the pieces and memories that had been left behind. Bottlecap green eyes. Ink black hair. That devilish little smile. The pilgrim outfit. I could see it all so brightly in my head and yet it so hurt to think about.

So there I was, throwing myself one hell of a pity party on the couch, thinking I might call in sick to work for a few days, when there was a knock on the door. Like any self-respecting citizen, I went to look through the peephole before answering it. At first glance, I didn’t recognize the two people standing there. One was a tall black man dressed splendidly in a freshly-ironed police uniform and shoes that would sing opera if they could talk; and the other was a woman of average height, with bored eyes and feathery blonde hair. At second glance, I knew who they were—Lamar and the bubble gum woman from the police station, of course. But I still couldn’t figure out why they were here. Bubble Gum snapped her raspberry-flavored rubber and—

“Oh shit,” I muttered to myself. The check! THE CHECK! They’d come to see how I was doing with Loki, how we were getting along, if I’d set him up with his own living quarters or put him in school or kept him well-fed and healthy and—

Lamar reached forward and knocked again and I had two seconds to get myself together mentally before swinging the door open to tell them the bad news. Only, what I was supposed to say, I had no idea.

“Hey,” Bubble Gum’s eyes lit up suddenly, and I was perturbed at her lack of boredom. “I know you were probably expecting someone from the state office—” she snapped her gum, “—but they’re kinda short staffed right now. Actually, they’re kinda short staffed always. I’m sure you understand. Anyways, I’m Thera, this is Lamar; we’ve met but it’s been a while. May we come in? We’re just here to go over standard procedure and whatnot. Adoptive parents must suffer the ultimate trial… judgement.” She laughed to herself, holding up a clipboard that looked absolutely stuffed with official documents, and I wondered vaguely if I would need a ballpoint pen, or if they would just send me to prison right away when I had to explain that Loki had vanished into thin air in a Nunavut forest clearing. Remember when you were joking about going to the looney bin? Well, if it ain’t a one-way to prison, this is your ticket, my brain reminded me unhelpfully. I fought the urge to swat the side of my own head and smiled thinly at the people on my doorstep. “I, uh, well, of course. I just—I should tell you—”

Footsteps pounded across the floor behind me and Loki poked his head into the doorway. “Hey Mom, who’s that?”

“Oh, it’s Lamar and Thera, they’ve come to check on you,” I answered, and then froze, my eyes growing big. “Wha- LOKI! Loki! Loki?”

“Yes?” He blinked up at me innocently, green eyes glimmering in the morning sunlight. He was right there, right there, dressed in a regular old t-shirt and jeans, unruly curls as wild as ever. I opened and closed my mouth, searching for something to say, before I realized he was giggling at me and we were still in the presence of two officers of the law.

“I… thought I told you to go make your bed,” I sputtered lamely, but he bought it and gave me a little wink.

“Oh yeah!” And he was off to the other end of the house. I turned back to Lamar and Thera, trying not to look as if I’d just seen a ghost.

“May we come in?” Thera repeated, snapping her gum once more.

“Please do,” I said, and stood aside as they entered the house.

After I got the pair situated at the table and answered a few rudimentary questions of theirs (name, date of birth, place of birth, if I could recall my address—probably because I looked so out of it; I told them I was sorry, I’d just woken up), I excused myself and went to go find Loki, who was standing in a doorway of my house that I hadn’t seen in all the years I’d lived there.

“Who do you think you are, that you can go around just spontaneously creating rooms?” I whispered fiercely, but I was so glad to see him that I couldn’t resist wrapping him up in the world’s biggest Mom hug. He laughed and slung his arms around my neck, pressing his cheek to mine to speak in my ear,

“Well, you said to make my bed, not yours!”

“How did you get here?” I said, squeezing him tight, and then letting him drop to the floor. “And when? Why?”

“How? What? Who?” He mimicked me for a second, but it was all in good fun. Still laughing, he said, “Mother says that if I’m good I can come see you every month, just in time for the checks. She brought me here on the bridge. Of course, I would have been here earlier, but I couldn’t get the year right.” He scratched the back of his neck with an embarrassed blush. “I accidentally took a few detours. But what was weird was…” He trailed off.

“I think I know what you mean,” I said. “I have the pictures. I’ll show you later. But right now we’ve got to prove to Lamar and Thera that you’ve been living here for the past month, so…”

“Already on it,” he said, smiling cheekily. “You think we’ll need more seidr?”

“Hopefully not,” I said, poking him on the shoulder and teasing a laugh out of him. “But just in case, I know I can count on my kiddo.”

Loki held up his arms and though I rolled my eyes at the gesture, I gave in and carried him out to the dining room, where Lamar and Thera were waiting patiently. I offered Thera another stick of gum, because it seemed like she was working her jaw rather hard at the other one. Once she delicately spit the raspberry pellet into the kitchen garbage and began anew on a watermelon stick, she sighed and set her pen to the paper of the first of many legal documents. “Alright, kid, we’ve just got some questions for ya, and we’re gonna need you to answer honestly, okay?”

He nodded, taking a seat in the chair he was most familiar with. I slid into the one beside him.

“Name?”

“Loki,” He answered.

“Age?”

“Eight.”

“And this is your…?” I realized Thera was gesturing towards me, and I looked to my kiddo for an answer, heart nearly stopping in my chest.

Loki grinned, eating up all the attention. He turned to me, face open and happy, green eyes alight with affection. “Mom.”

And that was what made it perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By gosh, I've just had a great time writing this. Seriously. Writing this book has gotten me through a bunch of really dark dealings in my life and even though it's one of my less-known works on here, I'm so proud of it. It's the first really-long story I've ever finished!! Really! Like, in my entire life!! And that is sure something to celebrate :))) I hope you enjoyed - as always, leave a comment telling me what you liked, didn't like, want to change, and any suggestions you have for this or future works. I love you lots, and I hope you have a beautiful day!
> 
> <3 <3 <3

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Please leave a comment telling me if you liked it, if you didn't like it, why you did/didn't like it, and what I could change to make it better. Any grammatical/continuity errors you noticed? If so, don't hesitate to point them out! Your comments fuel my work :) As I said before and shall say again, I love you very much and hope you have a magnificent day today!


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